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GEORGE  1.  COCHRAN     MEYER  ELSASSER 

DR.  JOHN  R.  HAYNES    WILLIAM  L.  HONNOLD 

JAMES  R.  MARTIN         MRS.  JOSEPH  F.  SARTORI 

to  the 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

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Lectures  and  Sermons 


BY 


WILLIAM   J.  POTTER 


UMitl)  a  llBiograpljical  ^fertcti 


BY 


FRANCIS   ELLINGWOOD   ABBOT,  PH.D. 


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J    J  J  J  J 

BOSTON 

Geo.  it.  Ellis,  141  Franklin  Street 

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By  Geo.  H.  Ellis 


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GEO.  H.  ELLIS,   PRINTER,    Kl    FRANKLIN    ST..   BOSTON 


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CONTENTS. 


Prefatory  Note iii 

Biographical  Sketch v 

List  of  Publications Ixxix 


Religious  Sentiment  in  the  Light  of  Science     .  i 
The    Twenty-third    Psalm   in    the    Nineteenth 
Century : 

L  The  Eternal  our  Shepherd 25 

n.  Green  Pastures  and  Still  Waters 46 

in.  Paths  of  Safety 65 

IV.  The  Valley  of  Shadows 89 

V.  The  Overflowing  Bounty 1 1 1 

VI.  The  Eternal  Goodness  and  Human  Destiny      .  130 

The  Trinity  of  Evolution 153 

Religion  as  the  Affirmation  of   God  in  Human 

Nature 167 

Rational  Grounds  for  Worship 182 

The  World's  Parliament  of  Religions   ....  201 

Sealed  Orders 232 


^^  contexts 

Wheat  axi^  Tares 246 

Courage  of  Coxvictioxs 263 

Heroisms  ix  Daily  Life 276 

The  Savixg  Power  of  Truth 289 

The  Voice  of  the  Draft 306 

The  Dramatic  Elemext  ix    the   Career   of    Lix- 

COLX 324 

The  Higher  Patriotism 354 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 


The  sermons  included  in  this  volume  extend  over 
the  greater  part  of  Mr.  Potter's  ministry, —  from 
1863,  the  date  of  "The  Voice  of  the  Draft,"  to  1S93, 
when  "The  World's  Parliament  of  Religions"  was 
written.  Nearly  all  of  them  were  preached  many 
times,  and  subject  to  such  constant  revision  that  the 
final  form,  as  here  printed,  often  differs  materially 
from  the  original.  For  this  reason  I  have  not  as- 
signed a  date  to  each  sermon.  The  series  of  lect- 
ures on  the  Twenty-third  Psalm,  which  he  delivered 
in  Boston  and  Worcester  in  the  fall  of  1893,  had 
originally  been  given  in  part  as  sermons  in  New 
Bedford  in  1892.  These  lectures  it  was  my  father's 
expressed  intention  to  publish.  In  the  selection  of 
the  sermons  I  have  been  guided  partly  by  the  fre- 
quency with  which  he  preached  them,  thus  following 
somewhat  his  own  judgment;  and,  also,  by  sug- 
gestions kindly  made  by  his  friends  and  parishioners 


IV  PREFATORY    NOTE 

in  New  Bedford.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  in 
many  cases  his  own  choice  and  that  of  his  hearers 
seems  to  coincide.  Many  of  these  sermons,  it  may 
also  be  added,  he  carried  witli  him  and  preached  on 
his  journey  to  the  West  in  1893. 

Alfred  C.  Potter. 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  Dec.  10,  1S94. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 

BY  FRANCIS  ELLINGWOOD  ABBOT. 


To  be  noble  in  character  is  the  supreme  service 
which  one  man  can  render  to  his  fellows.  It  is 
greater  than  any  particular  achievement,  however 
splendid,  because  it  is  itself  the  achievement  of 
achievements,  the  most  useful  and  the  most  difficult 
of  deeds.  Single  actions  may  easily  command  more 
gratitude  and  more  praise,  since  they  tax  less  the 
average  man's  faculties  of  imagination,  comprehen- 
sion, and  appreciation.  But  to  be  from  birth  to 
death  one  long  activity  devoted  to  the  highest  ends, 
disinterested  and  lofty  and  pure,  is  to  be  more  than 
a  doer  of  dramatic  exploits,  however  brilliant,  be- 
cause, while  this  is  possible  to  few,  that  is  to  exem- 
plify and  encourage  what  is  possible  to  all.  When 
asked  what  improvement  he  could  suggest  in  the 
actual  constitution  of  the  universe,  a  pessimist  re- 
plied :  "  I  would  make  health  as  catching  as  dis- 
ease." In  this  reply  there  was  more  wit  than  wis- 
dom ;  for  such  is  the  actual  order  of  things  that,  in 
the  spiritual  sphere  at  least,  the  contagiousness  of 
good  is  even  greater  than  that  of  evil.  If  it  were 
not  so,  the  world  would  scarcely  hold  together.    And 


Vi  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

that  it  is  so  has  been  made  clear  to  all,  with  the 
powerful  persuasiveness  of  an  example  as  beautiful 
as  it  is  rare,  in  the  life  of  William  James  Potter. 

The  story  of  this  life  is  simple  and  short.  Little 
is  found  for  the  recorder  of  it  to  tell.  Its  events 
were  not  such  as  to  attract  wide  attention  or  to  fur- 
nish the  materials  of  an  exciting  tale.  But  its  qual- 
ity was  such  as  to  command  the  reverence  and  win 
the  love  of  an  ever  increasing  circle  of  those  whose 
judgment  is  the  judgment  of  the  universal  con- 
science. From  beginning  to  end  it  was  the  self- 
consecration  of  a  pure  spirit  to  universal  aims  —  the 
devotion  of  large  intellectual  powers,  great  practical 
wisdom,  a  strong  but  never  aggressive  will,  and  shy 
but  tender  sympathies,  to  the  highest  welfare  of  all. 
To  have  lived  such  a  life,  in  luminous  contrast  and 
superiority  to  the  melancholy  self-seeking  so  com- 
mon among  mankind,  is  to  have  won  the  truest 
and  grandest  success  which  can  crown  any  human 
career. 


William  J.  Potter  was  born  at  North  Dartmouth, 
Massachusetts,  youngest  of  the  nine  children  of 
William  and  Anna  (Aiken)  Potter.  A  curious  doubt 
in  his  own  mind  hung  over  the  year  of  his  birth. 
On  February  i,  1848,  he  wrote  in  his  journal: 
"  Once  more  has  time  brought  around  my  birthday 

—  the  first  day  of  my  twentieth  year."     On  Febru- 
ary  I,  1850,  he  wrote:    "My  twenty-first   birthday 

—  I  am  now  legally  a  man,  a  /)'i?<?-man."     These  two 
entries  fix  the  date  of  his  birth  as  February  i,  1829. 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  Vll 

Yet  in  later  times  he  habitually  thought  and  wrote 
of  the  year  of  his  birth  as  1830.  It  does  not  appear 
on  the  town  records,  but  in  the  records  of  the  Friends 
at  Dartmouth  it  is  recorded  as  "  2  mo.  ist,  1829." 
Examination  of  these  records,  however,  shows  that 
they  are  not  original,  but  were  written  at  some 
subsequent  time ;  and,  as  their  source  is  unknown, 
they  cannot  be  considered  final.  The  reader,  there- 
fore, is  left  to  draw  his  own  inference  from  the  facts. 

The  original  emigrant-ancestor  of  the  Potter  fam- 
ily, from  whom  William  was  descended  in  the  sev- 
enth generation,  was  Nathaniel  Potter,  who  came 
from  England  to  Rhode  Island,  and  died  there  prior 
to  1644.  His  son,  Nathaniel  Potter  {1637-1704), 
who  married  Elizabeth  Stokes,  was  born  at  Ports- 
mouth, Rhode  Island,  but  removed  to  Dartmouth, 
Massachusetts.  In  the  third  generation,  Samuel 
Potter  (1675-1748)  married  Mary  Benton  and  lived 
at  Dartmouth.  In  the  fourth  generation,  Benjamin 
Potter,  of  Dartmouth,  married  Ruth  Brownell  in 
1736.  In  the  fifth  generation,  William  Halladay 
Potter,  of  Dartmouth,  who  married  Patience  Thurs- 
ton, was  born  in  1748  and  died  in  1814.  In  the 
sixth  generation,  William  Potter  (i 784-1 870)  mar- 
ried Anna  Aiken  in  1812;  and  their  ninth  child, 
William  James,  was  born,  as  just  shown,  on  Feb- 
ruary I,  1829. 

Other  Hneal  ancestors  were  Adam  Mott,  of  Cam- 
bridge, England,  whose  son,  Adam  Mott,  born  in 
England,  came  over  to  Newport  in  1634,  and  was  a 
prominent  member  of  the  society  of  Friends ;  John 
Williams,  who  came  from  England  to    Scituate  in 


via  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

1632 ;  Captain  Michael  Pierce,  who  was  born  in 
England,  lived  at  Hingham  and  Scituate,  and  was 
killed  by  the  Indians  in  King  Philip's  War,  1676; 
Thomas  Holbrook,  of  England,  who  lived  succes- 
sively at  Weymouth,  Dorchester,  and  Medfield,  and 
died  in  1677  ;  Matthew  Gannett,  who  was  born  in 
England  in  161 8,  settled  at  Hingham,  was  at  Scitu- 
ate in  165 1,  and  died  in  1695;  Anthony  Dodson, 
who  was  at  Scituate  in  1650.  All  these  were  an- 
cestors on  the  father's  side,  while  among  those 
on  the  mother's  side  are  found  the  names  of  Aiken, 
Rowland,  Perry,  and  Hathaway.  It  appears,  there- 
fore, that  William  J.  Potter  came  of  good  old  New 
England  stock,  including  original  Quakers,  and  at 
least  one  Indian-fighter  who  laid  down  his  life  in 
defence  of  the  colony.  But  no  clergyman  or  min- 
ister has  been  thus  far  discovered  among  his 
ancestors. 

II. 

The  materials  from  which  this  sketch  of  Mr.  Pot- 
ter's life  is  drawn  are  extremely  meagre.  Four  man- 
uscript journals  covering  portions  of  the  period  from 
1847  to  1858,  a  few  miscellaneous  memoranda  of  his 
own,  a  few  notes  by  his  son,  and  a  few  pamphlets 
and  newspaper  cuttings, —  these  are  the  only  data 
which  have  been  supplied  to  me.  Out  of  these 
scanty  materials  it  is  impossible  to  construct  a  con- 
nected story,  or  even  to  outline  the  course  of  devel- 
opment which,  beginning  with  the  Quaker  boy  on 
an  old  New  England  farm,  ended  in  one  of  the 
wisest  and  best  of  men  and  one  of  the  foremost  re- 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  IX 

ligious  reformers  of  our  generation.  Outwardly  so 
peaceful  and  noiseless,  inwardly  so  bold  in  thought 
and  so  rich  in  thought's  results,  his  spiritual  life 
flowed  on  like  a  river  amidst  the  beautiful  scenerv 
of  an  old  cultivated  plain,  yet  brought  down  among 
the  haunts  of  men  an  illimitable  wealth  of  golden 
grains  from  the  mountain  fastnesses  of  his  own  be- 
ing. All  who  knew  him  must  rejoice  that  he  lived 
long  enough  to  concentrate  this  wealth  in  so  beauti- 
ful a  form  as  that  of  the  series  of  lectures  in  Boston 
in  which  his  life  as  religious  teacher  came  to  a  mem- 
orable culmination.  And  multitudes  who  knew  him 
not  will  now  discover  that,  when  he  died,  they  had 
been  "  entertaining  an  angel  unawares." 

The  brief  story  of  his  outward  career  is  easily 
told. 

Born  and  brought  up  on  his  father's  farm,  Potter 
was  educated  in  the  district  schools  of  Dartmouth 
and  the  Friends'  school  at  Providence,  Rhode  Island. 
His  home  life  was  happy,  and  during  his  vacations 
he  cheerfully  helped  his  father  in  doing  the  farm 
work.  In  fact,  it  was  his  father's  strong  desire  to 
see  him  make  farming  his  life-work  and  carry  on  the 
old  place  as  his  ancestors  had  done,  But  William 
felt  the  stirrings  of  higher  aspirations  and  capacities 
than  could  be  satisfied  by  agriculture  as  a  permanent 
occupation,  and  felt  constrained  to  take  up  teaching 
as  opening  a  field  for  their  better  development.  In 
the  end  his  father  reluctantly  consented  that  he 
should  go  to  the  Normal  School  at  Bridgewater  and 
fit  himself  for  the  life  of  a  teacher.  This  school  he 
entered,  December  2,   1847,  and  during  his  second 


X  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

term  got  some  practical  experience  by  instructing 
the  entering  class.  On  November  25,  1848,  he 
began  to  teach  a  school  at  Kingston,  and  remained 
there  till  March  25,  1849  '■>  but  he  did  not  feel  satis- 
fied with  his  own  success.  While  in  Kingston,  ear- 
lier desires  to  go  to  college  were  rekindled.  May  i, 
however,  finds  him  beginning  a  new  school  at  Sand- 
wich, with  fifty  scholars  between  the  ages  of  twelve 
and  seventeen.  His  stay  was  short  ;  the  school 
committee  were  not  satisfied  with  the  discipline 
maintained,  and  he  returned  home.  May  26,  to  fit 
himself  for  college  without  a  teacher.  This  difficult 
labor  he  pursued  with  more  or  less  success  till  Octo- 
ber 5,  when  he  received  a  letter  from  Henry  B. 
Wheelwright,  preceptor  of  the  Bristol  Academy  in 
Taunton,  offering  him  a  situation  there.  The  salary 
was  small,  but  he  was  to  have  Mr.  Wheelwright's 
assistance  in  fitting  for  college.  The  offer  was  ac- 
cepted, and  he  remained  teaching  at  Taunton  till 
May  15,  1850,  when  he  returned  home  to  resume  his 
studies  more  uninterruptedly  in  preparing  for  the  col- 
lege examination.  After  some  quite  heroic  work,  he 
passed  the  examination  successfully,  and  was  ad- 
mitted as  a  member  of  the  freshman  class  at  Har- 
vard College,  July  16,  without  conditions.  The 
result  was  very  creditable  to  him  under  his  difficult 
circumstances.  In  August  he  joined  his  class  in 
Cambridge. 

Under  date  of  September  19,  1850,  only  about 
three  weeks  after  he  began  his  college  work,  I  find 
his  first  mention  of  the  ministry,  as  follows:  — 

"  For  several  months  my  mind  has  been  quite  un- 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  XI 

settled  again  as  to  what  is  to  be  the  business  of  my 
life,  owing  partly  to  my  disappointment  in  teaching, 
and  partly  to  a  kind  of  mental  attraction  which  I 
have  for  some  time  experienced  towards  the  minis- 
try. Of  course,  I  feel  my  entire  unfitness,  both  in 
talents  and  in  depth  of  religious  character,  for  such 
a  work ;  yet  I  cannot  blind  myself  to  the  very  obvi- 
ous inclining  of  my  mind  towards  it.  What  is  the 
motive  of  the  movement  is  not  so  easily  perceived. 
I  have  not  yet  been  able  to  fully  analyze  this  ten- 
dency of  my  feelings,  so  as  to  discover  whence  it 
springs,  how  composed,  and  how  much  attention 
it  is  worthy  to  receive.  About  all  I  can  say  is 
that  it  exists,  and  has  existed  for  nearly  a  year, 
but  that  previously  the  bias  of  my  mind  was  rather 
against  the  ministry  as  a  profession  for  myself.  Is 
it  the  voice  of  duty  or  of  inclination  .-•  Is  it  the 
natural,  legitimate  product  of  my  own  soul,  to  be 
heeded  and  observed,  or  is  it  a  mere  fluttering  of 
fancy  sent  to  try  my  judgment,  and  which  is  to  be 
expelled  as  a  hostile  intruder?  These  questions, 
though  important,  I  cannot  yet  answer.  When  I 
look  forward  to  such  a  work,  I  see  numerous  ob- 
structions rising  up  in  the  way  of  my  ever  becoming 
engaged  in  it,  and  some  of  them  apparently  insur- 
mountable ;  yet  the  feeling  haunts  me  still,  and  rea- 
son sets  to  work  with  imagination  to  devise  means 
for  clearing  the  path  of  all  hindrances.  Besides  de- 
ficiency of  talents  and  religious  character,  which 
alone  seems  sufficient  to  debar  me  from  a  profession 
now  suffering  from  this  very  cause,  there  are  other 
hindrances,  arising  out  of  the  circumstances  of  my 


Xll  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

past  life  and  the  nature  of  my  present  sentiments, 
peculiar  to  myself.  I  have  not  yet  outlived  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Quaker  element  in  my  education.  My 
mind  still  has  a  kind  of  repugnance  to  learning  to  be 
a  minister,  though  my  reason  finds  nothing  objection- 
able in  it.  Again,  I  can  scarcely  reconcile  the  idea  of 
my  becoming  a  clergyman  with  my  present  views  of 
theology,  churches,  religious  rites,  &c.  And  what 
society  or  sect  must  I  go  with,  believing  with  none } 
What  creed  should  I  preach,  possessing  none  .-*  I 
have  in  my  mind,  it  is  true,  an  ideal  minister  differ- 
ent from  any  real  one  whom  it  was  ever  my  lot  to 
know.  But  have  I  any  reason  to  hope  I  could  ap- 
proach more  nearly  my  ideal  of  a  minister  than  I 
have  approached  my  ideal  of  a  teacher.'*  Thus  the 
matter  comes  to  my  mind,  presenting  arguments  pro 
and  con,  and  receiving  replies  ;  but  as  yet  there  is 
no  decision.  In  the  meantime  let  me  do  present 
duty,  and  the  future  in  due  season  will  develop  it- 
self. More  light  will  be  afforded,  as  I  use  correctly 
present  supplies." 

During  his  freshman  vacation,  from  December  i, 
1850,  to  February  28,  185 1,  Potter  kept  school  in 
Medfield,  succeeding  somewhat  better  than  formerly 
in  meeting  the  demands  of  his  own  exacting  ideal. 
Probably  he  taught  school  more  or  less  in  the  winter 
vacations  of  his  later  college  years ;  but  no  journal 
has  been  found  which  gives  a  record  of  his  college 
life  beyond  the  end  of  his  sophomore  year.  He  was 
appointed  "  orator  "  by  "  our  class  society  "  (Insti- 
tute of  1770),  and  gave  his  oration  to  universal 
satisfaction  at  the  close  of  that  year.     He  became  a 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  Xlll 

member  of  the  Alpha  Delta  Phi  and  the  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  societies,  and  was  graduated  in  the  class  of 
1854. 

III. 

On  June  i,  not  long  before  his  graduation,  Potter 
received  the  appointment  of  "  Hopkins  classical 
teacher  "  in  the  Cambridge  High  School,  being  the 
first  to  hold  this  position,  and  continued  to  dis- 
charge its  duties  till  1856,  when  he  resigned  it. 
During  the  year  1856-1857,  he  was  a  student  in  the 
Harvard  Divinity  School,  but  was  never  graduated 
there. 

On  August  9,  1857,  he  started  from  New  York  for 
Europe  in  the  "  Louis  Napoleon,"  a  German  sailing- 
vessel,  together  with  Gerald  Fitzgerald  (Divinity 
School,  1859)  and  Henry  W.  Brown  (Harvard  Col- 
lege, 1852,  and  Divinity  School,  1857).  Arrivingat 
Hamburg  on  September  14,  he  immediately  pro- 
ceeded to  Berlin,  and  on  the  19th  was  matriculated 
as  a  student  of  philosophy  at  the  University,  engag- 
ing lessons  in  German  at  the  same  time  from  a 
private  teacher.  When  the  term  began,  October  22, 
he  listened  to  lectures  by  Haupt  on  the  Satires  of 
Horace  and  Trendelenburg  on  the  history  of  philos- 
ophy ;  but  he  writes,  "  I  scarcely  understood  a  dozen 
words  of  both  of  them."  Later  in  November,  he 
heard  lectures  by  Wuttke  on  the  history  of  Christian 
dogma  and  on  Hegel's  philosophy  and  its  relation 
to  Christianity —  by  Michelet  on  the  philosophy  of 
modern  history  since  1775, — by  Vatke  on  some  meta- 
physical   questions, —  and  by  Althaus   on    Goethe's 


XIV  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

"  Faust  ; "  and  now,  he  writes,  "  I  begin  to  discover 
a  little  progress  in  understanding  the  lectures."  He 
remained  at  Berlin,  studying,  visiting  the  art-gal- 
leries, and  observing  German  life,  till  March  i,  1858, 
when  he  went  to  Dresden.  Here  he  stayed  about  a 
month,  devoting  much  of  his  time  to  the  picture  gal- 
leries ;  then,  passing  rapidly  through  Leipzig,  Bam- 
berg, Nuremberg,  Munich,  Ulm,  and  Stuttgart,  he  re- 
paired to  Tubingen,  April  13,  where  he  remained  to 
study,  rooming  with  Mr.  Brown.  Here  he  heard 
Baur  on  an  uninteresting  subject,  and  Fichte  on 
the  history  of  modern  philosophy  ("  the  students 
here  call  him  '  der  wortreiche  Sohn  des  geistreichen 
Vaters ' ") ;  but  the  lecture  courses  were  not  suffi- 
ciently attractive  to  induce  him  to  matriculate.  On 
May  10,  he  writes  :  "  Concluded  to  give  up  attend- 
ing lectures  and  devote  myself  to  study  in  my  room. 
Still  read  Baur  and  his  school  of  theology  with  great 
pleasure."  On  July  i  :  "  To-day  we  are  packing  for 
Switzerland.  Our  Tubingen  race  is  run.  Though 
we  make  it  a  short  term,  I  feel  that  I  have  got  much 
from  it  —  much  from  my  reading.  I  now  see  what 
Baur  and  his  school  have  done,  and  am  better  able 
to  give  a  scientific  reason  for  my  disbelief  in  the  old- 
school  theology  than  I  was  before."  And  on  July 
2:  "Left  Tubingen  at  12  o'clock  in  company  with 
Brown  and  Brooks  for  Switzerland,  by  way  of  Baden 
and  Freiburg." 

The  itinerary  of  the  Swiss-Italian  journey,  which 
occupied  about  six  weeks,  can  be  made  out  to  have 
been  as  follows:  — 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  XV 


July 

2. 

Tubingen.  Wildbad. 

(( 

3- 

Baden-Baden. 

It 

5- 

Freiburg. 

1* 

6. 

Schaffhausen. 

« 

7- 

Dachsen  and  the  Rhine  Falls. 

tt 

8. 

Zurich. 

u 

9- 

Horgen,  Zug,  Arth,  Mt.  Rigi. 

<( 

lO. 

Waggis,  Kiissnacht,  Lucerne. 

<( 

1 1. 

Fluelen,  Amstag,  Gothard  Pass,  Hos- 
penthal. 

<( 

12. 

Furka  Pass,  Grimsel. 

4< 

13- 

Guttanen,  Reichenbach. 

(( 

14. 

Greater  Scheideck,  Faulhorn. 

<( 

15- 

Grindelwald. 

« 

16. 

Wengern  Alp,  Lauterbrunnen,  Inter- 
laken. 

<( 

17- 

Lake  Brienz,  Giessbach  Falls. 

« 

18. 

Neuhaus,  Thun,  Berne. 

(( 

19. 

Freiburg. 

<< 

20, 

Vevay,  Chillon. 

<< 

21. 

Geneva. 

<( 

23- 

Chamonix. 

(( 

25. 

Martigny,  via  Tete  Noire. 

<< 

26. 

St.  Bernard  Pass. 

<( 

27. 

Aosta,  Chatillon. 

« 

28. 

St.  Theodule  Pass,  Breuil. 

<( 

29. 

Corner  Grat. 

<( 

30. 

Zermatt,  Vispnach. 

(( 

31- 

Simplon  Pass. 

August  I. 

Isella,  Domo  d'  Ossola. 

« 

2. 

Pallanza,  Lake  Maggiore. 

« 

3- 

Magadino,  Luvino,  Lugano. 

XVI 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 


August  4. 

Carpolago,  Milan. 

6. 

Sondrio. 

'       7. 

Bormio. 

8. 

Stelvio  Pass,  Mais. 

'       9- 

Finstermiing  Pass,  Landeck. 

'      10. 

Innsbruck. 

'      II. 

Kufstein,  Rosenheim. 

*      12. 

Stock,  Traunstein,  Reichenhall 

*      13- 

Berchtesgaden. 

'      14- 

Hallein,  Salzburg. 

'      IS- 

Munich. 

From  Munich,  where  he  stayed  a  few  days,  Potter 
went  to  Heidelberg  on  August  22,  made  a  five-days 
excursion  to  Mannheim,  Mainz,  Cologne,  and  Cob- 
lenz,  and  returned  to  Heidelberg,  where  he  remained 
studying  until  October  4.  Then  he  started  for  Italy 
once  more,  by  way  of  Frankfort,  Carlsruhe,  Strass- 
burg,  Basle,  Zurich,  Rapperschwyl,  St.  Gall,  Ragatz, 
Coire,  and  the  Spliigen  Pass.  In  Italy  he  went  to 
Chiavenna,  Colico,  Bergamo,  Brescia,  and  Venice, 
where  he  stayed  three  days, —  to  Padua,  Ferrara, 
Bologna,  and  Florence.  The  last  entry  in  his 
journal  is  that  of  October  22,  and  ends  abruptly,  in 
the  midst  of  a  description  of  Florence  by  moonlight. 


IV. 


During  the  winter  of  1858-1859,  after  his  return 
from  Europe,  Potter  remained  in  Cambridge  as  a 
candidate  for  the  ministry.  He  preached  at  New 
Bedford  several  times  in  July,  1859,  and  finally  re- 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  XVU 

ceived  an  invitation  from  the  wealthy  Unitarian 
society  there  to  become  its  minister.  His  ordina- 
tion took  place  on  December  28,  1859,  the  ordination 
sermon  being  preached  by  Rev.  Dr.  William  H. 
Furness ;  and  his  first  sermon  as  pastor,  printed  in 
the  volume  which  he  published  in  1885  with  the 
title,  "  Twenty-five  Sermons  of  Twenty-five  Years," 
was  delivered  on  January  i,  i860. 

In  the  spring  of  that  year,  he  began  keeping  house 
with  his  sister,  Mrs.  Ruth  Almy,  and  her  husband. 
In  July,  1 861,  he  preached  at  Washington  on  the  day 
of  the  first  battle  of  Bull  Run  ;  and  he  visited  the 
camps  in  the  vicinity  during  the  terrible  confusion 
that  ensued.  On  July  23,  1863,  he  was  drafted; 
and  on  the  following  Sunday,  July  26,  he  delivered 
a  sermon  on  "  The  Voice  of  the  Draft,"  declaring  his 
resolution  not  to  disobey  the  call  of  his  country  in 
her  hour  of  need.  He  tendered  his  resignation  as 
minister  of  the  Unitarian  society,  which,  however, 
refused  to  accept  it,  granting  him  leave  of  absence 
for  a  year  and  giving  him  five  hundred  dollars.  In 
the  latter  part  of  August,  he  went  to  Washington  at 
the  special  request  of  Secretary  Stanton,  who  had 
heard  of  his  patriotic  course,  and  who  had  written 
the  following  letter  to  Hon.  John  H.  Clifford  of  New 
Bedford  : 

War  Department 
Washington  City,  Aug.  9,  1S63. 
My  dear  Sir : 

I  am  infinitely  obliged  to  you  for  the  sermon 
delivered  by  Mr.  Potter.  Such  outpouring  of  a  noble 
spirit  cannot    fail  to  do  good.     I    have  directed  its 


XVlll  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

publication  in  the  Army  and  Navy  Gazette  as  the 
best  exposition  of  the  Enrolling  Law  that  has 
appeared.  I  think  he  is  right  in  the  belief  that  the 
time  has  come  for  him  to  have  a  nearer  view  of  the 
great  movement  of  which  the  war  is  a  development. 
For  this  reason  I  wish  to  see  him.  It  cannot  be 
otherwise  than  that  he  is  drafted  for  no  ordinary 
service  —  a  service  that  needs  not,  nor  can  be  ex- 
cused by  a  surgeon's  certificate.  Please  tell  him  I 
wish  to  see  him,  and  give  him  my  thanks  for  what 
he  has  already  done.  .  .  . 

Yours  truly, 

Edwin  M,  Stanton. 

The  result  of  his  interview  with  the  great  war 
minister  w^as  that,  after  preaching  his  farewell  ser- 
mon on  September  6,  Potter  was  assigned  the  duty 
of  "visiting  and  inspecting  all  the  United  States 
hospitals  in  and  near  Washington  and  Alexandria.'* 
This  duty  he  faithfully  discharged,  making  elaborate 
notes  of  the  condition  and  needs  of  all  the  hospitals 
under  his  care. 

Returning  to  New  Bedford  in  November,  on  a 
furlough,  he  preached  again  to  his  society,  and,  on 
November  26,  vvras  married  to  Elizabeth  Claghorn 
Babcock,  daughter  of  Spooner  and  Lydia  Delano 
Babcock  of  New  Bedford.  They  proceeded  at  once 
to  Washington,  and  in  January,  1864,  began  to  keep 
house  in  a  little  one-story  hut  in  the  Convalescent 
Cam.p,  Alexandria,  where  he  had  been  appointed 
chaplain.  In  May,  he  resigned  his  position  as  chap- 
lain, and  returned  home  with  his  wife.     Leaving  her 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  XIX 

there,  he  went  back  to  the  front,  and  served  on  the 
Sanitary  Commission.  He  remained  on  duty  in 
hospital  during  the  campaigns  near  Fredericksburg, 
and  was  often  under  fire.  In  August,  1864,  he  re- 
turned home,  his  leave  of  absence  having  expired, 
and  resumed  his  duties  as  minister  of  the  Unitarian 
Society. 

From  1866  to  the  end  of  his  life,  Potter  was  pro- 
foundly interested  in  the  Free  Religious  Associa- 
tion, and  his  work  in  its  behalf  constitutes,  in  fact, 
his  chief  claim  to  public  remembrance  and  gratitude 
beyond  the  limits  of  his  society  and  the  city  of  his 
adoption.  He  was  Secretary  of  the  Association 
from  its  birth  in  1867  until  1882,  and  President  of 
it  from  1882  to  1893 ;  he  was  familiar  with  its  inside 
and  outside  history  as  no  man  could  possibly  be  who 
had  not  given  to  it,  as  he  had  done,  the  faithful  con- 
tinuous service  of  twenty-six  years  ;  and  it  is  a  cause 
of  deep  regret  that  he  never  took  up,  as  I  repeatedly 
urged  him  to  do,  the  task  of  compiling  an  accurate 
and  full  history  of  the  Association  from  the  original 
records,  interpreted  and  enriched  by  his  own  per- 
sonal knowledge.  Such  a  history  would  have  been 
of  priceless  value  hereafter  ;  and  now  it  can  never 
be  written.  He  shrank  from  the  task,  yet  was  at- 
tracted by  it,  too ;  and  it  is  more  than  probable  that 
he  would  have  undertaken  it,  if  his  life  had  been 
spared  ten  years  longer.  What  further  I  may  have 
to  say  on  this  subject  of  the  Free  Religious  Associa- 
tion and  of  Potter's  connection  with  it  must  come 
later. 

In  the  winter  of  1872- 1873,  his  eyes  gave  out,  and 


XX  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

his  general  health  became  impaired ;  this  obliged 
him  to  spend  the  months  of  March  and  April  in  the 
milder  climate  of  Florida,  where  he  recovered  his 
strength. 

In  the  spring  of  1875,  he  spent  a  few  weeks  in 
Washington  on  account  of  his  wife's  health  —  a  sad 
forewarning  of  the  greatest  sorrow  of  his  life ;  and 
again,  in  the  winters  of  1875-1876  and  1876-1877, 
the  same  reason  took  them  both  South  once  more, 
first  to  Columbia,  South  Carolina,  and  afterwards  to 
Kittrell,  North  Carolina.  In  June,  1877,  still  for  the 
same  melancholy  reason,  the  whole  family  removed 
to  Grantville,  Massachusetts,  now  Wellesley  Hills, 
which  obliged  Potter  to  travel  to  New  Bedford  every 
week  in  order  to  discharge  the  preacher's  duty.  His 
gentle  and  lovely  wife  died  on  December  7,  1879, 
leaving  her  husband  alone  in  the  care  of  their  two 
young  children.  He  returned  with  them  from 
Grantville  to  New  Bedford  in  May,  1880,  but  not  to 
the  old  home.  Over  this  sacred  grief  let  the  veil  be 
reverently  drawn.  Enough  to  say  that  no  father 
ever  fulfilled  his  duty  more  conscientiously  or  more 
tenderly  or  more  wisely  than  did  this  bereaved  and 
great-souled  man. 

When  "The  Index"  was  founded  in  Toledo,  Ohio, 
and  its  first  issue  appeared  on  January  r,  1870,  Pot- 
ter assumed  charge  of  a  special  page  devoted  to  the 
Free  Religious  Association,  and  edited  it  indepen- 
dently, as  Secretary,  during  the  first  year  of  that 
weekly  journal.  At  the  end  of  the  year,  this  special 
page  was  given  up,  but  the  leading  ofificers  of  the 
Association,  together  with  other  invited  writers,  be- 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  XXI 

came  henceforth  "editorial  contributors."  This  ar- 
rangement continued  till  July  i,  1880,  when  the 
original  editor  of  "The  Index"  resigned;  and  the 
Index  Association,  of  which  Potter  was  the  Presi- 
dent, gave  to  the  Free  Religious  Association  the 
entire  property  and  goodwill  of  "  The  Index,"  valued 
at  over  five  thousand  dollars,  on  condition  of  contin- 
uing to  publish  the  journal  in  the  cause  of  "  Free 
Religion."  Proprietorship  of  "The  Index"  was  now 
vested  in  trustees  selected  by  the  Free  Religious 
Association,  and  Potter  became  editor,  with  an  as- 
sistant, of  "The  Free  Religious  Index" — a  name 
subsequently  changed  back  to  its  original  form. 
This  function  he  continued  to  discharge,  going  to 
Boston  weekly  to  supervise  the  "  making-up  "  of  the 
paper,  till  the  end  of  the  year  1886.  At  that  time 
"The  Index"  was  given  up  altogether ;  and  the  Free 
Religious  Association,  ceasing  to  have  a  weekly  ex- 
ponent of  its  ideas,  lost  greatly  in  influence  and 
power.  During  the  entire  seventeen  years  of  its 
existence,  "The  Index"  enjoyed  the  unwearied  sup- 
port and  cooperation  of  Potter's  mind  and  heart ; 
and  in  its  columns  are  still  to  be  found  some  of  the 
ripest  and  richest  products  of  his  brain. 

The  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  his  settlement  as 
minister  of  the  Unitarian  Society  was  celebrated  at 
New  Bedford  on  December  28,  1884.  His  own  an- 
niversary sermon,  together  with  the  speeches  of 
Thomas  M.  Stetson,  Esq.,  and  the  Hon.  William  W. 
Crapo,  may  be  found  in  the  volume  already  men- 
tioned, "Twenty-five  Sermons  of  Twenty-five  Years," 
which  was  published  in  compliance  with  the  request 


XXll  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

of  "  many  friends  "  who  desired  a  permanent  memo- 
rial of  their  beloved  pastor  and  preacher. 

In  the  spring  of  1887,  Potter's  health  was  again 
much  broken  by  sleeplessness  and  impaired  nervous 
energy,  but  was  restored  for  the  time  by  a  month's 
trip  to  the  South.  In  1889,  from  January  to  June, 
he  was  compelled  to  take  another  and  longer  rest  in 
Florida  and  South  Carolina.  So  much  discouraged 
did  he  feel  at  last,  in  consequence  of  these  repeated 
failures  of  health,  that  he  tendered  his  resignation  in 
April  of  this  year ;  but  his  society,  which  was  de- 
votedly attached  to  him,  refused  to  accept  it,  and 
insisted  on  lightening  his  labors  by  giving  him  a  col- 
league. A  young  graduate  of  the  Harvard  Divinity 
School  in  whom  he  had  become  deeply  interested, 
Mr.  Paul  Revere  Frothingham,  was  invited  to  be- 
come his  associate  pastor,  and,  in  accordance  with 
Potter's  own  earnest  wishes,  was  ordained  as  such 
on  October  9,  1889. 

But  the  long  and  faithful  service  was  drawing  to 
a  close.  In  January,  1890,  Potter  was  once  more 
obliged  to  seek  rest  and  recovery  at  the  South  ;  and, 
feeling  that  his  life-work  in  New  Bedford  had  been 
fully  accomplished,  he  sent  in  his  final  resigna- 
tion on  October  2,  1892.  To  all  entreaties  to  with- 
draw it,  he  remained  inflexible,  and  his  decision 
was  communicated  to  the  society  in  the  following 
letter :  — 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  XXlll 

New  Bedford,  Sept.  27,  1892. 

To  the  Members  of  the  First  Congregational  Society 
in  New  Bedford : 

My  Dear  Friends, —  The  time  has  come  when  I 
am  constrained  by  a  sense  of  duty  to  announce  to 
you  my  desire  and  purpose  to  withdraw  from  the 
pastoral  ofhce  which,  by  the  kindness  of  this  Soci- 
ety, I  have  held  nearly  thirty-three  years. 

I  am  moved  to  this  action  by  no  sudden  impulse, 
nor  is  there  need  to  assure  you  that  it  arises  from  no 
break  in  the  harmony  of  our  parochial  relations. 

For  a  considerable  time  I  have  contemplated  such 
a  step, —  not  with  the  view  of  retiring  from  the 
ministry,  but  that  I  may  be  free,  after  possibly  a 
brief  interval  of  rest,  for  a  somewhat  different  kind 
of  professional  labor ;  or,  at  least,  for  carrying  else- 
where the  religious  message  which  these  years  have 
made  so  familiar  to  you.  During  the  period  of 
active  work  which  remains  to  me,  and  which  I  trust 
is  not  to  be  brief,  I  am  convinced  that  I  can  use  my 
resources  to  better  advantage  in  a  different  field. 

It  is  to  be,  I  am  aware,  no  easy  nor  pleasant  inci- 
dent thus  to  sever  the  various  ties  which  bind  us 
together  —  ties  professional  and  personal,  which,  for 
many  of  you  as  for  me,  have  been  forming  through 
the  lapse  of  a  generation.  In  bonds  of  sorrow  and 
of  joy,  as  well  as  by  the  interests  of  united  religious 
endeavor,  our  lives  have  been  knit  into  each  other. 

Nowhere  else  can  I  expect  again  to  establish  the 
home-feeling  which  has  grown  up  for  me  among  you, 
and  in  this  place  so  near  the  spot  of  my  birth  and 


XXIV  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

the  homes  of  my  ancestors  and  kindred,  and  I  shall 
hail  it  as  a  kind  fortune  if  I  shall  be  permitted,  after 
my  working  days  are  finished,  to  return  hither  to 
spend  in  this  community  the  remnant  of  my  life. 
But  that  time  is  not  yet  ;  and  meanwhile  the  voice 
of  duty  rather  than  sentiment  is  to  be  heeded.  Be- 
lieving that  in  the  years  immediately  to  come  I  can 
labor  more  advantageously  elsewhere,  I  ask  that  you 
will  grant  me  a  friendly  release  from  our  compact. 

By  the  terms  of  my  settlement,  notice  of  a  desire 
on  either  side  to  terminate  the  relation  was  to  be 
given  six  months  previous  to  the  act  of  dissolution. 

The  Society,  however,  would  confer  on  me  a 
special  favor,  if  it  should  so  far  waive  this  condition 
as  to  allow  my  resignation  to  take  effect  on  the 
28th  of  next  December,  which  will  be  the  anni- 
versary of  my  ordination  and  will  bring  my  ministry 
to  the  full  period  of  thirty-three  years. 

I  feel  the  more  free  to  request  this  concession, 
inasmuch  as  the  junior  pastor,  who  in  his  three 
years  of  service  has  proved  himself  amply  and  ac- 
ceptably equipped  for  all  pastoral  duties,  will  then 
have  returned  from  his  absence  in  Europe,  and  will 
be  on  the  spot  to  take  up  the  work  of  the  parish, 
with  no  break  in  its  interests.  I  am  happy  in  the 
thought  that  I  can  thus  leave  the  Society  well  organ- 
ized in  its  various  departments,  and  advancing  under 
earnest  and  vigorous  leadership  to  improve  new 
opportunities. 

In  the  future  as  in  the  past,  the  harmony,  prog- 
ress, and  welfare  of  this  Society  will  ever  be  dear  to 
my  heart.     By  its  generous  liberality  and  aid,  I  have 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  XXV 

been  enabled  to  do  what  must  now  stand  as  the 
main  work  of  my  life.  Both  parochially  and  individ- 
ually, beloved  friends,  my  best  wishes  will  remain 
with  you  and  for  you  ;  and  all  your  successes  in  the 
things  that  make  for  the  highest  interests  of  human 
existence  will  find  grateful  place  among  my  own 
purest  satisfactions. 

With  sincere  and  affectionate  regard, 

Your  friend  and  pastor, 

Wm.  J.  Potter. 

Reluctantly  acquiescing  at  last  in  Potter's  own 
view  of  the  matter,  the  Society  accepted  his  resigna- 
tion with  universal  sorrow  on  October  2,  in  the  fol- 
lowing resolutions :  — 

*^  Resolved,  That  the  Senior  Pastor  shall  on  the 
28th  of  December  next  be  liberated  from  all  duties 
to  us  in  New  Bedford,  to  the  end  that  he  may  be 
enabled  to  preach  or  publish  elsewhere  the  views  so 
faithfully  and  well  preached  in  our  pulpit.  He  has 
been  a  moral  power  and  intellectual  centre  in  our 
city. 

"  His  preaching  has  profoundly  satisfied  the  lofti- 
est spiritual  and  religious  needs  of  ourselves  and  the 
many  visitors  to  our  services. 

"While  our  love  for  him  and  our  estimate  of  his 
value  to  us  would  never  permit  us  to  voluntarily 
allow  his  departure,  yet,  as  it  is  solemnly  required  by 
him,  we  can  still  rejoice  that  others  in  other  churches 
and  in  distant  communions  may  share  in  the  high 
expositions  hitherto  confined  so  much  to  us. 

"Though  we  are  but  pupils  of  his,  yet  the  views 


XXVI  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

upheld  here  are  widely  deemed  to  represent  the 
status  of  this  church,  and  it  is  fitting  that  in  some 
sense  we  have  our  missionary.  We  extend  to  him  our 
earnest  wishes  that  his  efforts  may  be  blessed  with 
success,  and,  to  assist  him  therein,  we  request  that 
he  will  accept  from  us  the  sum  of  ^2,000  annually 
for  five  years  to  assist  him  in  his  proposed  work. 

"  We  shall  be  glad  to  hear  his  reports  of  the 
progress  of  the  Liberal  Faith,  wherever  he  may  be. 
We  sincerely  hope  that  the  kindness  of  the  future 
may  enable  us  to  hear  his  voice  often,  and  in  ac- 
cordance with  his  request  now  accept  his  tendered 
resignation,  to  take  effect  as  above." 

The  story  of  this  beautiful  and  unique  termination 
of  so  long  a  pastorate  will  be  brought  to  a  full  and  fit 
close  by  the  following  responsive  letter  :  — 

New  Bedford,  Dec.  10,  1892. 
To  the  First  Congregational  Society  in  New  Bedford: 

Dear  Friends, —  Most  grateful  acknowledgment 
is  due  to  you  for  the  very  kind  terms  in  which  you 
have  accepted  my  resignation  of  the  pastoral  office, 
and  for  your  generous  proposal  to  share  the  responsi- 
bility for  the  religious  work  which  I  have  in  mind 
to  do  elsewhere. 

It  is  especially  gratifying  to  me  thus  to  have  your 
moral  support  in  the  work,  while  the  material  aid 
you  ask  me  to  accept  will  relieve  me  from  certain 
anxieties  and  make  me  much  freer  in  the  work  than 
I  could  be  without  it. 

I  am  pleased,  therefore,  to  stand  in  this  relation  to 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  XXVU 

you,  as  your  missionary  preacher  in  other  parts  of 
our  land. 

Since,  however,  unforeseen  circumstances  may 
arise  which  may  make  it  desirable  to  modify  or  ter- 
minate the  relation  before  the  five  years  named  in 
your  vote  shall  expire,  I  assent,  with  the  understand- 
ing that  this  arrangement  shall  not  be  binding  beyond 
the  time  when  either  party  to  it  may  desire  its  dis- 
solution. 

Let  me  also  take  this  opportunity  to  return  my 
deeply  felt  thanks  for  the  numerous  individual  ex- 
pressions which  have  come  to  me  of  your  friendly 
regard  and  affection.  Though  I  am  to  hold  toward 
you  but  little  longer  the  pastoral  relation,  it  will  be 
to  me  a  constant  happiness  to  keep  your  religious 
sympathy,  and  to  deserve,  if  I  may,  your  continued 
friendship  and  good  will. 

Most  sincerely  yours, 

Wm.  J.  Potter. 

On  Christmas  Day,  1892,  Potter  preached  his 
farewell  sermon  on  "  Thirty-three  Years  :  their  End 
a  Beginning."  Henceforth  he  was  a  free  missionary 
of  free  religion.  Leaving  Boston  about  a  fortnight 
later,  he  preached  in  Chicago  on  January  15,  1893, 
and  soon  afterwards  proceeded  to  California,  where 
he  spent  about  five  months,  preaching  (mostly  in  Uni- 
tarian pulpits)  in  Pasadena,  San  Diego,  Los  Angeles, 
Fresno,  and  San  Francisco.  In  June  he  went  to 
Colorado,  where  he  spent  the  summer  in  resting 
from  the  fatigues  of  the  winter  and  spring.  Towards 
the  last  of  August,  he  returned  to  Chicago,  to  attend 


XXVlll  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

the  World's  Parliament  of  Religions  at  the  Columbian 
Exposition,  and  to  participate  in  the  twenty-sixth 
annual  meeting  of  the  Free  Religious  Association, 
held  in  conne&tion  with  the  Parliament  on  Septem- 
ber 20.  The  Parliament  itself  was  the  concrete 
historical  realization  of  a  dream  of  his  own,  declared 
in  his  own  words  twenty-one  years  before  at  the 
annual  meeting  of  the  Free  Religious  Association 
in  1872, —  words  which  constitute  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  prophecies  ever  uttered. 

"  Some  of  us  here,"  wrote  Potter,  in  the  report  of 
the  executive  committee  on  that  occasion,  "may 
live  to  see  the  day  when  there  shall  be  a  World's 
Convention,  in  London,  or  perhaps  in  Boston,  or  San 
Francisco,  of  representatives  from  all  the  great 
religions  of  the  globe, —  coming  together  in  a  spirit 
of  mutual  respect,  confidence,  and  amity,  for  com- 
mon conference  on  what  may  be  for  the  best  good  of 
all ;  not  to  make  a  common  creed  by  patching  arti- 
cles together  from  their  respective  faiths  in  which 
they  might  find  themselves  in  agreement,  but,  eman- 
cipated from  bondage  to  creed  and  sect,  to  join 
hands  in  a  common  effort  to  help  mankind  to  higher 
truth  and  nobler  living.  It  may  be  that  the  work  of 
this  Association  will  culminate  in  such  a  World's 
Convention  —  a  peace  convention  of  the  religions. 
For  that  grasp  of  hands  across  the  dividing  line  of 
opinion,  with  mutual  respect  for  the  natural  rights  of 
opinion,  in  a  common  effort  to  get  truth  and  to  do 
good,  is  the  Free  Religious  Association." 

Such  a  vision  as  this,  which  at  the  time  was  re- 
garded as  the  outburst  of  an  exaggerated  and  extrav- 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  XXIX 

agant  enthusiasm,  was  in  truth  a  flash  of  religious 
genius.  Seldom,  if  ever,  has  a  prognostication  of 
the  future  been  so  solidly  grounded  in  the  nature  of 
things,  or  a  piercing  glance  into  the  secret  of  a  far- 
off  evolution  been  so  amply  warranted  and  verified 
by  the  subsequent  fact.  Was  there  not  a  rare  poetic 
beauty  and  fitness  in  the  conjunction  of  circum- 
stances that  permitted  the  prophet  to  behold  the 
fulfilment  of  his  own  prophecy, —  nay,  more,  to  be 
a  part  of  it,  and  to  drink  the  delight  of  helping  to 
usher  in  the  new  epoch  of  Universal  Religion  which 
he  had  so  glowingly  foretold  and  labored  for  so  long  ,-' 
There  is  cause  for  gratitude  to  all  who  loved  him 
that  he  should  have  been  allowed  to  taste  this  su- 
preme satisfaction  before  he  died. 

For  the  end  was  near.  He  left  Chicago  for  New 
Bedford,  September  24,  and  began  in  Horticultural 
Hall,  Boston,  October  22,  that  noble  course  of  Sun- 
day lectures  which  was  the  summing  up  of  all  he  had 
won  of  wisdom  in  his  beautiful  life  and  the  grand 
consummation  of  his  life-work.  This  course  he  com- 
pleted in  Boston  on  December  10,  occupying  a  room 
meanwhile  at  "The  Otis,"  41  Mount  Vernon  Street 
—  a  room  that  it  pleased  him  at  the  time  to  know 
was  situated  directly  over  the  room  in  which  his 
old  friend  the  writer  was  born.  He  repeated  these 
lectures  one  by  one  in  Worcester  between  November 
12  and  December  17,  when,  after  preaching  in  the 
forenoon  for  the  last  time  to  his  beloved  society  in 
New  Bedford,  he  went  in  the  afternoon  from  New 
Bedford  to  Worcester,  and  delivered  there  once 
more    the  closing  lecture  of   his  Horticultural  Hall 


XXX  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

course  in  the  evening.  That  splendid  discourse  was 
his  swan-song,  his  last  word  in  public,  the  fit  and 
beautiful  ending  of  his  faithful  ministry. 

On  Thursday,  December  21,  he  had  the  crowning 
happiness  of  performing  the  marriage  service  for  his 
only  son.  His  cup  was  full.  His  work  was  done. 
Late  on  that  evening,  while  passing  through  the 
streets  of  Boston  alone,  the  releasing  summons  came 
suddenly  and  without  warning.  Apparently  he  grew 
dizzy,  and  sat  down  to  rest  himself  on  the  doorstep 
of  No.  6  Province  Court.  Here  he  was  found  uncon- 
scious by  passersby.  Notice  was  given  to  the  police, 
who  carefully  removed  him  to  the  station,  where, 
without  recovering  his  consciousness,  he  died  about 
midnight.  Identified  by  some  papers  in  his  pocket, 
he  was  at  last  delivered  to  his  friends,  borne  to  New 
Bedford,  and  buried,  on  December  26,  from  the 
noble  old  stone  church  which  he  had  always  loved 
and  to  which  he  had  devoted  the  best  years  of  his 
life.  A  great  audience,  comprising  all  the  best  ele- 
ments of  the  community  and  filling  the  large  audito- 
rium, assembled  in  awed  silence  to  express  the 
universal  sorrow  for  his  death  and  the  universal 
reverence  for  his  rare  personal  worth  —  the  univer- 
sal appreciation  of  the  power  of  his  thought  as  a 
preacher,  the  nobility  of  his  character  as  a  man,  the 
beneficence  of  his  influence  as  a  citizen,  and  the 
incalculable  good  which  had  come  to  the  city  of  his 
adoption  through  the  radiance  of  his  life  and  the 
strength,  beauty,  and  saintliness  of  his  soul.  Such 
feelings  and  thoughts  were  in  the  minds  of  all,  and 
were  uttered  by  his  two  old  friends  who  had  been 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  XXXI 

summoned  to  speak  the  last  words  of  love,  grief,  and 
hope  over  his  lifeless  form.  This  was  laid  in  the 
earth  beside  that  of  the  gentle  and  devoted  wife  who 
had  left  him  fourteen  years  before,  and  whose  pre- 
mature departure  had  been  the  one  great  sorrow  of 
his  life.  Thus  William  James  Potter  was  gathered 
to  his  fathers,  honored  and  loved  by  all. 

V. 

There  is  little  in  this  record  of  an  outwardly  un- 
eventful life  to  dazzle  the  imagination,  challenge  the 
applause,  or  even  attract  the  eyes  of  the  general 
public.  But  it  is  such  lives  that  make  the  world 
worth  living  in.  Not  so  much  by  what  he  did,  or 
even  by  what  he  said,  as  by  what  he  was,  Potter  has 
left  an  indelible  impress  upon  the  community  that 
knew  him  best.  He  was  not  a  great  master  or  man- 
ager of  affairs,  but  commanded  universal  respect  for 
the  soundness  of  his  judgment  and  the  weight  of  his 
influence.  He  was  not  a  great  thinker  or  originator 
of  ideas,  but  knew  how  to  make  the  best  ideas  of  his 
age  tell  for  the  purification  of  character  and  of 
society.  There  was  a  singular  moderation  in  his 
mental  action  which,  while  it  hindered  him  from 
becoming  a  discoverer  or  beating  out  new  paths  of 
thought,  qualified  him  admirably  for  the  most  im- 
portant function  of  a  free  preacher  in  a  free  com- 
munity — pe7'suasion.  Bold  and  sincere  in  a  rare 
degree,  he  knew  how  to  carry  his  people  with  him 
and  keep  their  sympathies,  yet  without  stooping  to 
conciliate  their  prejudices  or  to  withhold  any  part  of 


XXXU  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH 

the  message  he  felt  bound  to  deliver.     Preeminently 
a  reformer  and  innovator  in  religion,  the  calmness  of 
his  temperament,  no  less  than  the  tenderness  of  his 
spirit,   preserved   him  from   arousing  opposition  by 
pressing  the  logic  of  reform  beyond  the  willingness 
or  ability  of  his  hearers  to  follow  it.     Probably  he 
owed  this  balance  of  courage  and  caution,  this  tem- 
pering  of   the   demands   of   logic  by  the   claims  of 
sympathy,  to  his  Quaker  ancestry  and  early  environ- 
ment.    But,  whatever  its  origin,  his  temperamental 
moderation  both  in  action  and  in  thought  saved  him 
from  that  grim  remorselessness  in  pursuing  a  principle 
to  its  last  results  which  makes  at  once  the  strength 
of  the  speculative  pioneer  and  the  weakness  of  the 
practical  reformer.     He  always  stopped  a  little  short 
of  the  extreme  logic  of  the  case.    There  was  nothing 
in  this  that  savored  of  concession  or  compromise;  it 
was  a  characteristic  rooted  deeply  in  the  essential 
quality  of  Potter's  mind,  and  lay  at  the  bottom  of  his 
success  as  a  preacher ;  it  made  him  dear  to  those 
whom  he  so  gently  led  to  higher  levels  of  religious 
thought,  because,  although  they  felt  that  he  did  not 
go  too  far  or  get  out  of  their  reach,  they  could  also 
feel  that  he  was  uncompromisingly  true  both  to  him- 
self and  to  them.     The  preacher's  success  is  founded 
upon  the  people's  belief  in  his  sincerity,  but  no  less 
upon  their  sympathy  with  the  substance  of  what  he 
preaches ;  and  the  very  slowness  with  which  Potter's 
intellect,  logical  as  it  was,  moved  to  the  remoter  and 
subtler  implications  of  his  own  thought,  was  a  limita- 
tion  which  proved    to  be  a   positive   power   in    his 
preaching  and  gave  him  a  stronger  hold  upon  his 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  XXXlll 

people's  hearts.  No  audience  on  earth  will  travel 
very  far  on  the  track  of  an  idea  or  a  principle;  for 
nothing  is  feebler  in  the  average  man,  at  the  present 
stage  of  human  development,  than  the  sense  of 
rational  continuity  or  logical  necessity.  Whoever 
taxes  this  capacity  too  severely  from  the  pulpit  will 
find  few  to  follow  him  ;  he  will  defeat  his  own  object. 
Potter  made  no  such  failure.  The  strength  of  his 
preaching  was  its  large  general  intelligence,  its 
sobriety  of  speech,  its  elevation  of  tone,  its  profound 
religiousness  of  spirit.  His  eloquence  was  that  of  a 
whole  man  appealing  to  the  whole  humanity  of  his 
hearers,  and  making  them  conscious  of  a  wider 
horizon,  a  purer  atmosphere,  a  less  beclouded  sky ; 
his  strongest  appeal  of  all  was  the  simple  fact  of 
his  own  presence  and  his  own  spirit,  as  one  with 
the  Eternal  whom  he  interpreted.  Strong,  self-con- 
tained, and  self-consecrated  to  the  best,  he  delivered 
his  message  in  all  simplicity  and  self-forgetfulness ; 
and  the  loyal  adhesion  of  the  New  Bedford  society  to 
their  minister  for  a  whole  generation,  in  these  days 
of  short  pastorates,  was  the  highest  tribute  of  appre- 
ciation and  gratitude  which  they  could  possibly  have 
paid  to  this  incorruptible  servant  of  whatever  truth 
he  saw. 

VI. 

But  Potter  was  more  than  a  preacher  —  he  was  a 
citizen.  He  took  the  utmost  interest  in  the  welfare 
of  the  city  and  of  the  general  community,  and  ex- 
tended his  influence  for  good  far  beyond  the  narrow 
limits  of  his  parish.     Bold  and  free  of  speech  as  he 


XXXIV  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

was,  the  benignity  of  his  nature  and  his  complete 
freedom  from  the  spirit  of  antagonism  —  he  was  a 
true  man  of  peace,  like  his  ancestors  —  rendered  him 
a  favorite  with  the  other  ministers  of  the  place,  and 
it  was  said  at  the  time  that  every  minister  in  New 
Bedford  attended  his  funeral.  Among  the  topics  of 
his  sermons  came  often  those  most  closely  connected 
with  local  affairs,  the  business  interests  of  the  city, 
political  issues,  not  only  during  the  war,  but  to  the 
end  of  his  life.  He  was  alive  to  everything  that 
concerned  the  higher  interests  of  the  people,  and 
took  part  in  all  promising  reforms,  if  not  with  very 
active  participation,  at  least  with  words  of  open  and 
hearty  sympathy.  Temperance,  woman  suffrage, 
civil  service  reform,  the  rights  and  wrongs  of  the 
freedmen  and  the  Indians  and  the  Chinese  and  the 
oppressed  of  every  name,  the  cause  of  education 
and  the  young  —  all  these  things  and  more  of  the 
same  kind  enlisted  his  earnest  efforts  for  the  better- 
ment of  the  world.  Particularly  deserving  of  men- 
tion in  this  connection  is  the  active  part  he  took  in 
the  establishment  of  the  Swain  Free  School,  one  of 
the  most  important  institutions  of  New  Bedford.  I 
owe  to  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Andrew  Ingraham,  the 
accomplished  and  successful  principal  of  this  School, 
the  following  extracts  on  this  subject  from  Ellis's 
"  History  of  New  Bedford  and  Vicinity  :  " — 

"In  1880,  Charles  W.  Clifford,  William  J.  Potter, 
Charles  H.  Peirce,  and  Edmund  Grinnell  were 
chosen  members  of  the  Board  of  Trustees." 

"  What  should  the  Trustees  do  ?  Fortunately  the 
testator  himself,  by  the  very  terms  of  the  will,  and 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  XXXV 

more  particularly  by  the  codicil  of  April  26,  1858, 
had  shown  his  foresight  of  changed  conditions.  In- 
deed, the  courts  of  Massachusetts  have  favored  that 
interpretation  of  the  language  of  public  bequests 
which  recognizes  that  testators  have  some  knowl- 
edge of  human  affairs.  Twenty  years  had  passed 
since  the  death  of  Mr.  Swain.  The  city  schools  had 
reached  a  high  degree  of  efificiency,  and  there  were 
flourishing  private  schools.  The  field  seemed  to  be 
already  occupied.     What  was  to  be  done  .'' 

"  The  solution  of  this  problem  was  due  to  the 
sagacity  of  the  Rev.  William  J.  Potter.  He  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  university  extension  before  that 
phrase  was  heard  among  us,  or  rather  of  something 
that  contained  the  essential  element  of  university 
extension  —  of  something  that  competent  judges  pro- 
nounced better  than  university  extension — of  some- 
thing, however,  that  may  be  worked  in  harmony  with 
university  extension  :  of  a  permanent  local  institution 
for  higher  education,  not  a  fitting  school,  necessarily, 
to  prepare  the  young  to  pass  a  definite  examination, 
not  a  training-school,  necessarily,  where  constant 
practice  for  many  hours  a  day  and  for  many  days  in 
a  year  must  be  enforced  to  insure  quickness  and 
accuracy  in  doing  something  useful.  These  things 
might  be  secured  incidentally,  but  the  main  purpose 
should  be  to  furnish  opportunities  of  culture  to  those 
who  either  had  or  wished  to  have  the  sentiment  and 
the  idea  of  culture. 

"  With  ages  ranging  from  fifteen  to  sixty ;  with  no 
other  occupation  than  school  work  or  with  the  cares 
of  household  and  business ;  attending  constantly  or 


XXXVl  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

unable  to  attend  except  at  rare  intervals ;  studying 
for  a  livelihood  or  for  enlarged  experience  ;  both  men 
and  women  and  girls  and  boys  have  appreciated  the 
efforts  that  have  been  put  forth  to  meet  their  wants, 
and  have  helped  to  make  the  school  a  monument  to 
its  founder." 

VII. 

With  all  this  varied  and  successful  activity  as  a 
preacher  and  a  citizen,  however,  Potter  exerted  the 
deepest,  widest,  and  most  lasting  influence  of  his  life 
through  the  Free  Religious  Association.  One  of  its 
three  original  founders  in  1867,  from  its  foundation 
to  his  own  death,  a  period  of  twenty-six  years,  he 
was  pre-eminently  the  directing  mind  of  this  Asso- 
ciation, serving  it  for  fifteen  years  as  Secretary  and 
for  eleven  years  as  President  ;  and  his  connection 
with  it  has  made  his  name  historic.  For  no  history 
of  the  development  of  religious  thought  and  life  in 
America,  from  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  in  1865, 
to  the  Columbian  Exposition  and  the  World's  Parlia- 
ment of  Religions,  in  1893,  can  possibly  be  written, 
unless  the  intellectual  movement  from  Christianity 
to  Free  and  Universal  Religion,  represented  by 
the  Free  Religious  Association,  shall  be  made  its 
fundamental  theme.  This  intellectual  movement,  it 
is  true,  has  been  very  much  larger  than  any  visible 
activities  of  the  Association ;  but  the  Association 
remained  during  that  period  its  chief  social  expres- 
sion, while  "The  Index,"  so  closely  connected  with 
the  Association,  remained  for  the  greater  part  of 
that  period,  from   1870  until   1887,  its  chief  literary 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  XXXVll 

expression.  The  movement  itself,  in  general,  was 
the  intellectual  advance  from  Transcendentalism  or 
Mysticism  to  Scientific  Method  in  religious  philos- 
ophy, and  from  Christianity  to  Universal  Religion 
in  ethics  and  social  organization.  These  two  great 
transitions,  which  in  truth  are  co-extensive  with  the 
religious  movement  of  the  whole  civilized  world,  are 
still  very  far  from  being  completed  ;  we  are  still 
in  the  midst  of  them  ;  and  the  Free  Religious  Asso- 
ciation itself,  as  their  most  advanced  representative 
or  exponent,  has  lapsed  since  Potter's  death,  and 
mainly  because  of  the  loss  of  his  sagacious  leader- 
ship, into  a  state  of  arrested  development. 

For,  after  a  year's  experience  on  the  Pacific  coast 
as  the  free  missionary  of  free  religion,  and  after  the 
powerful  stimulus  to  thought  imparted  by  presence 
and  participation  in  the  great  religious  Parliament  at 
Chicago,  Potter  returned  to  the  East  with  a  deep 
and  clear  conviction  of  the  necessity  of  what  he 
called  a  "  new  departure  "  in  the  work  of  religious 
reform.  At  first  he  was  inclined  to  believe  that  this 
"new  departure"  must  be  made  independently  of 
the  Free  Religious  Association,  which  perhaps  had 
already  fulfilled  its  mission  and  might  now  grace- 
fully give  way  to  a  new  society,  founded  on  per- 
ception of  the  practical  as  well  as  theoretical  impos- 
sibility of  reconciling  the  principles  of  Universal 
Religion  with  the  mutually  exclusive  claims  of  the 
various  historical  religions,  and  devoted  to  the  enter- 
prise of  organizing  local  congregations,  in  "avowed 
independence  "  of  all  historical  religions,  on  the  basis 
of  Universal  Religion  alone.     This  was  his  own  un- 


XXXVIU  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

prompted  proposal.  To  the  suggestion,  however, 
that  the  constitution  of  the  Free  Religious  Associa- 
tion, which  had  originally  been  drafted  in  accordance 
with  the  spirit  of  Universal  Religion,  and  from 
which  even  the  mention  of  Christianity  had  been 
intentionally  excluded,  might  easily  be  developed 
into  a  form  which  should  realize  the  "  new  depart- 
ure "  through  the  Free  Religious  Association  itself. 
Potter  lent  a  ready  and  sympathetic  ear.  After  care- 
ful deliberation,  he  concluded  that  the  wisest  plan 
was  to  submit  a  proposition  of  constitutional  amend- 
ments to  the  Free  Religious  Association  at  the 
Annual  meeting  of  1894,  and  allow  the  fate  of  this 
measure  to  decide  the  question  whether  the  impera- 
tively needed  "new  departure"  should  be  effected 
through  this  Association,  or  through  a  new  one  spe- 
cially framed  for  the  purpose.  Owing  to  the  tem- 
peramental moderation  and  caution  already  alluded 
to,  Potter  had  not  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  this 
*'  new  departure  "  was  the  clear  need  and  duty  of  the 
hour,  until  his  own  experience,  as  a  missionary  of 
free  religion,  and  as  both  a  spectator  and  a  partici- 
pant in  the  World's  Parliament  of  Religions,  had 
convinced  him  that  it  was  a  practical  necessity  of 
the  actually  existing  situation  ;  he  waited  until  the 
logic  of  ideas  was  confirmed  by  the  logic  of  events. 
But,  this  once  made  plain  to  him,  he  hesitated  no 
longer.  When  I  asked  him  directly  whether,  if  the 
Free  Religious  Association  should  decline  to  take  up 
the  work  of  organizing  local  societies  on  the  basis 
of  avowed  independence  of  Christianity  and  avowed 
acceptance  of  Universal  Religion  alone,  he  was  ready 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  XXXIX 

to  favor  practically  the  formation  of  a  new  Associa- 
tion for  that  express  purpose,  his  reply  was  an  em- 
phatic yes;  and  he  added  that,  in  this  case,  Chicago 
would  probably  be  a  better  place  than  Boston  for 
startins:  the  new  movement.  It  was  this  answer 
which  induced  me  to  attend  the  conference  of  friends 
of  the  Free  Religious  Association  in  Boston,  Decem- 
ber II,  and  to  lay  before  them  a  draft  of  amend- 
ments, previously  approved  without  hesitation  or 
reservation  by  Potter  himself,  which  would  adapt 
the  constitution  of  the  Association  to  the  positive 
and  energetic  prosecution  of  the  "  new  departure." 
But,  scarcely  three  weeks  from  that  day,  that  noble 
heart  had  ceased  to  beat.  Deprived  of  its  long  re- 
vered leader,  the  Free  Religious  Association  adopted 
the  amendments,  indeed,  but  in  a  mutilated  form 
which,  by  omitting  the  cardinal  point  of  "avowed 
independence,"  deprived  them  of  all  significance  as 
a  "  new  departure."  The  death  of  its  leader  was  the 
death  of  its  own  leadership,  too,  and  the  world  waits 
for  its  successor. 

Further  details  are  unnecessary  here.  But  justice 
and  fidelity  to  Potter's  memory  require  that  so  much 
as  this  be  recorded  in  this  place.  When,  half  a 
century  hence,  not  only  America,  but  the  whole 
world  as  well,  shall  be  thickly  dotted  with  temples  to 
Universal  Religion,  devoted  to  the  pursuit  of  re- 
ligious truth  in  the  freedom  of  the  scientific  method, 
and  emancipated  from  all  dependence  upon  Brah- 
manism,  Buddhism,  Judaism,  Christianity,  Moham- 
medanism, or  any  other  particular  historical  religion, 
let  it  not  be  forgotten   that  William  J.  Potter  was 


xl  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

one  of  the  few  prophetic  minds  of  the  nineteenth 
century  who  welcomed  the  dawn  of  that  wider  and 
wiser  civilization,  and  spent  his  life  in  the  effort  to 
hasten  its  coming.  Let  it  be  not  forgotten  that  he 
who  did  more  than  any  other  one  man,  nay,  than  all 
other  men  together,  for  the  Free  Religious  Asso- 
ciation, and  who  would  fain  have  led  this  little  com- 
pany as  explorers  and  pioneers  and  first  possessors 
into  the  "  promised  land,"  died  with  the  clear  Pisgah- 
vision  of  its  beauty  in  his  soul  and  before  his  eyes. 
Doubt  of  this  statement  must  disappear  before  these 
words  in  his  leading  address  at  Chicago,  September 
20,  1893  :  "Following  the  logical  lines  of  a  growing 
unity  in  thought  and  purpose  among  the  most  en- 
lightened and  spiritual  minds  of  all  faiths,  the  Free 
Religious  Association  has  been  prognosticating  the 
actual  ultimate  union  of  all  the  great  faiths  of  the 
world  in  one  religion ;  and  this  not  by  the  conversion 
of  all  the  others  to  any  one  of  the  faiths,  but  by  the 
conversion  and  education  of  them  all  to  the  per- 
ception of  a  higher  realm  of  truth.  A  quarter  of  a 
century  ago,  when  the  Free  Religious  Association 
was  organized  on  a  basis  which,  as  to  rights  of  mem- 
bership, obliterated  the  line  separating  Christianity 
from  other  faiths,  such  a  prophecy  as  this  was  some- 
times ventured,  but  was  apt  to  be  regarded  as  the 
wild  dream  of  a  mere  visionary.  But  to-day  our 
most  glowing  visions  pale  before  advancing  reality. 
I  make  bold  to  say  that  we  who  are  now  living  will 
behold  — •  nay,  may  already  behold  —  the  dawn  of 
the  day  of  a  new  religion,  which  is  to  be  really  uni- 
versal in  its  principles  and  as  broad  as  humanity  in 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  xli 

its  boundaries ;  which  is  not,  however,  to  be  Chris- 
tianity, nor  Judaism,  nor  Buddhism,  nor  Neo-Brah- 
manism,  but  a  new  faith  into  which  the  specific  re- 
ligions are  in  form  to  die  that  they  may  continue 
to  live  in  spiritual  substance.  The  meaning  of  the 
Free  Religious  Association,  to  me,  culminates  in  this 
thought;  and,  in  the  remaining  time  during  which  I 
shall  ask  your  attention,  would  that  I  had  the  power 
to  impress  the  thought  on  your  minds  with  the  force 
with  which  it  sometimes  comes  to  my  own  !  " 

The  last  great  effort  of  Potter's  life  was  dedicated 
to  the  practical  realization  of  this  thought  in  the 
Free  Religious  Association  itself.  He  died  before 
the  effort  had  succeeded ;  and  without  him  the  effort 
failed.  Through  this  Association  he  would  fain  have 
laid,  in  concrete  reality,  the  corner-stone  of  the 
church  of  the  future,  the  free  church  of  the  Ideal; 
but  the  Association  lacked  insight  or  courage  enough 
to  take  that  next  step  forward  in  its  own  develop- 
ment which  would  have  consummated  the  hope  and 
aim  of  its  dead  leader,  or  to  rise  to  his  spiritual 
height.  This  testimony  must  his  old  companion 
for  twenty-six  years,  his  friend  in  private  and 
his  comrade  in  public,  bear  to  the  purity  of  his 
spiritual  perception,  the  splendor  of  his  moral  cour- 
age, and  the  crowning  act  of  loyalty  in  his  lifelong 
self-consecration  to  the  truth.  The  future  will 
recognize  this  forward-facing  movement  of  his  latest 
leadership  as  the  most  enduring  monument  to  his 
memory ;  for  it  indissolubly  associates  his  name  with 
the  advent  of  Universal  Religion  as  the  supreme 
renovating  force  of  human  history,  the  supreme  hope 
of  the  world  in  the  long  centuries  to  come. 


Xlii  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 


VIII. 


Preacher,  citizen,  religious  leader  —  Potter  was  all 
of  these,  not,  perhaps,  in  the  superlative  sense,  yet 
still  in  a  sense  so  full  and  noble  as  to  insure  a  grate- 
ful remembrance  of  his  work  for  many  generations. 
But  the  faithful  worker  is  always  greater  than  his 
work,  and  Potter  was  most  of  all  a  mail.  Some 
miscellaneous  extracts  from  the  few  early  journals 
alluded  to,  insertion  of  which  in  the  order  of  time 
would  have  had  the  effect  of  giving  to  those  early 
years  a  disproportionate  prominence,  as  compared 
with  the  later  years  of  which  I  have  no  records  at 
command,  will  throw  a  stronger  light  on  some  of  the 
most  striking  traits  of  his  character  than  could  be 
thrown  by  any  abstract  analysis  or  description. 

North  Dartmouth,  Nov.  23,  1847:  "The  idea  en- 
tered my  head  to-day  of  going  to  Bridgewater  to 
Normal  School,  Think  I  shall  ask  father  again, 
though  I  do  not  want  him  to  pay  my  board.  I  know 
that  he  wants  me  to  be  a  farmer,  and  that  I  shall 
have  to  oppose  his  wishes  to  be  a  teacher.  But  I 
feel  as  though  farming  is  not  intended  for  me,^and 
that  I  shall  do  more  good  in  some  other  sphere. 
The  question  has  often  occurred  to  me,  whether  we 
should  be  directed  entirely  as  to  our  employment  by 
the  choice  of  our  parents.  It  seems  to  me  that 
there  is  in  each  of  us  something  which  seems  to 
point  out  our  allotment  —  the  sphere  in  which  it  is 
'  designed  for  us  to  labor,  I  am  aware  that  this  may 
at  times,  like  the  magnetic  needle,  be  attracted  out 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  xlili 

of  its  natural  direction.  But  this  is  far  from  being 
necessarily  the  case,  and,  when  it  does  happen,  is 
the  result  of  mismanagement.  I  would  not  without 
reason  oppose  my  father's  wishes.  I  exceedingly 
dislike  to  do  so,  even  when  there  is  reason  for  it. 
Most  gladly  would  I  remain  here,  did  I  consider  it 
for  my  benefit,  and,  perhaps  it  will  not  be  too  much 
to  add,  the  benefit  of  my  fellow-men.  Here  are  my 
sunniest  moments  ;  home  is,  and  will  ever  be,  the 
centre  of  my  enjoyment.  It  radiates  every  circle  in 
which  I  tread,  howsoever  far  removed,  and  thus  will 
it  ever  be.  Farming  would  be  delightful,  could  I  be 
satisfied  with  it  ;  but  I  should  not  feel  that  I  were 
doing  all  that  I  had  the  capability  of.  I  do  not 
leave  it  from  any  dishonorable  motive.  I  respect  it 
as  an  employment.  Earth  has  not  a  more  honorable 
one." 

Nov.  25,  1847:  "Inquired  of  father  to-day  in 
relation  to  going  to  Bridge  water.  He  spoke  very 
discouragingly,  and  almost  induced  me  to  resolve  to 
say  no  more  about  leaving  the  farm,  but  to  content 
myself  to  remain  upon  it  through  life.  He  overcame 
my  feelings  by  alluding  to  the  probability  that  he 
would  not  dwell  on  earth  much  longer,  and  that  then 
there  would  be  no  one  to  take  his  place.  In  the 
bitter  thought  of  the  moment,  I  believed  that  I  had 
been  doing  wrong,  and  that  it  would  be  right  for  me 
to  sacrifice  all  my  plans  of  future  life  and  live  at 
home  as  contented  as  possible.  But  I  am  myself 
again ;  and  reason,  and,  I  think  I  may  say,  con- 
science, tell  me  to  still  press  forward ;  and  press  for- 
ward I  must." 


xliv  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

Nov.  29,  1847:  "Well,  it  is  decided  that  I  shall 
go  to  Bridgewater,  A  committee-man  of  Westport 
came  for  me  to  take  a  school.  I  asked  father  which 
I  should  do  —  take  the  school  or  go  to  the  Normal. 
He  told  me  to  take  my  choice  ;  which,  of  course,  I 
did.  He  seems  quite  reconciled  to  my  going  —  more 
so  than  at  either  of  the  last  two  terms  that  I  have 
spent  at  Providence.  I  am  glad  that  it  is  so ;  it  has 
always  been  a  source  of  regret  to  me  to  be  at  school 
without  his  entire  and  free  consent." 

Who  that  knew  Potter  intimately  in  his  later  life 
can  fail  to  recognize,  in  this  simple  and  serious  story 
of  his  own  action  by  the  boy  of  eighteen,  almost  all 
the  traits  that  characterized  the  mature  man — the 
"sweet  reasonableness,"  the  fairness  and  soundness 
of  judgment,  the  ready  response  to  any  appeal  made 
to  his  sympathy  or  natural  affections,  the  tenderness 
of  his  heart,  the  elevation  of  his  motives,  the  modesty 
and  conscientiousness  of  his  disposition,  and  withal 
the  quiet  and  amiable  but  indomitable  pertinacity 
with  which,  notwithstanding  any  and  all  opposing 
considerations,  he  always  adhered  in  the  end  to  any 
conclusion  in  thought  or  any  decision  in  life  at 
which  he  had  once  independently  and  deliberately 
arrived  ?  Never  was  there  a  better  illustration  of 
the  truth  of  Wordsworth's  famous  line :  "The  child 
is  father  of  the  man."  In  Potter's  vocabulary  there 
was  no  such  word  as  surrender. 

Bridgewater,  Feb.  13,  1848:  "I  observed  yester- 
day a  father  drawing  his  little  son  on  a  sled.  The 
little  boy  said,  'Why  don't  you  go  into  the  road.? 
You  said  you  would.'     What  caused  that  boy  to  ask 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  xlv 

this  question  but  an  instinctive  consciousness  of 
moral  principle  —  an  idea  that  his  father  was  bound 
to  do  as  he  had  promised  ?  Had  that  boy's  heart 
been  depraved,  evil,  and  corrupt,  had  he  known  by- 
nature  the  sins  of  lying  and  deceiving,  would  he  have 
thought  it  strange  that  his  father  should  not  do  as 
he  said  he  would  ?  " 

Yarmouth,  July  9,  1848  :  "  Have  given  up  the  idea 
of  going  to  Roundout,  so  that  I  have  quite  a  different 
story  to  write  from  that  of  last  night.  After  I  con- 
cluded to  go,  I  could  not  feel  quite  easy  about  it. 
To  go  off  without  the  consent  of  my  father  was  some- 
thing I  had  never  done,  and,  though  I  did  not  think 
he  would  have  any  objection,  yet  I  did  not  knoiv  it. 
At  any  rate,  he  could  not  tell  me  I  might  go.  This 
was  a  thought  which  troubled  me  at  Nantucket,  and 
probably  prevented  my  staying  more  than  anything 
else.  In  meeting,  to-day,  I  looked  over  the  reasons 
on  both  sides  of  the  question,  the  motives  which 
were  operating  to  induce  me  to  go,  and  the  obstacles 
which  seemed  to  be  in  the  way,  and  I  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  it  is  my  duty  to  go  home.  I  feel 
under  some  obligations  to  work  a  little  this  vacation. 
It  was  very  kind  in  father  to  let  me  have  the  time 
and  money  to  make  this  visit,  and  I  think  I  ought  to 
make  some  return  and  not  take  more  liberty.  The 
thought  of  the  pleasure  which  I  should  derive  from 
the  journey  would  sometimes  intrude  itself,  and 
somewhat  shake  my  convictions  of  duty.  But  con- 
science finally  approved  my  judgment,  and  I  settled 
the  matter  by  saying  to  friend  A.  after  the  meeting, 
'  I  shall  not  go  to  Roundout.'  " 


Xlvi  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

Kingston,  Dec.  lo,  1848:  "He  [Potter's  success- 
ful predecessor  in  the  Kingston  school]  was  easy, 
social,  familiar,  fond  of  activity,  and,  I  should  judge, 
rather  averse  to  retirement.  My  character,  if  I  can 
rightly  judge  it,  is  compounded  of  some  qualities 
very  opposite.  I  am  stiff,  unsocial,  distant,  so  re- 
served as  to  be  almost  uncivil,  apparently  preferring 
solitude  and  self  to  all  else.  To  all  of  these  charges 
my  first  appearance  will  bear  full  evidence.  But  to 
the  last  of  them,  in  justice  to  myself,  I  shall  plead 
'not  guilty,'  I  sometimes  love  solitude  ;  it  is  a  part 
of  my  nature  to  love  it,  and  I  have  taken  little  pains 
to  wean  myself  from  it.  But  I  do  not  love  it  always. 
I  am  sometimes  as  lonesome  as  other  folks,  and  suffer 
as  much  from  this  cause  as  any  one  need  to.  I  can- 
not at  one  step  make  strangers  my  acquaintances, 
and,  until  I  am  perfectly  acquainted,  I  cannot  feel  at 
home.  All  my  intimate,  real  acquaintances  are  few 
and  slowly  formed.  I  now  greatly,  severely  miss  a 
few  bosom  friends  to  whom  I  can  unburden  my 
pent-up  thoughts.  But  I  must  wait  till  they  are 
found.  Perhaps  the  materials  for  them  are  here 
somewhere  in  store  for  me  ;  and  yet  I  may  leave 
Kingston  and  not  have  a  single  real  acquaintance ! 
This  may  appear  improbable,  if  not  insane,  to  others, 
but  to  me  it  is  far  otherwise.  I  know  myself  as  I 
think  no  other  does,  except  Him  who  knows  us  all. 
What  I  mean  by  a  real  acquaintance  is  one  with 
whom  I  can  associate  for  hours,  days,  or  any  length 
of  time,  and  feel  perfectly  at  home,  exhibit  unre- 
strained freedom,  and  feel  that  it  is  no  effort  to  con- 
verse.    Now,   when   I  look   back  upon  my  life  and 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  xlvii 

think  of  the  people  with  whom  I  have  mingled,  and 
find  so  few  among  them  whom  I  can  call  real  ac- 
quaintances,—  when  I  reflect  that  during  my  whole 
course  at  Bridgewater  I  formed  scarcely  more  than 
half  a  dozen  such,  and  that  my  room-mates,  one  for 
fourteen  weeks  and  another  for  twenty-two,  are  not 
of  this  number,  the  thought  that  I  may  leave  Kings- 
ton without  a  single  acquaintance  is  to  me  far  from 
visionary.  It  is  an  idea  whose  reality  I  dread.  Not 
that  I  shall  have  no  friends  here ;  I  have  some 
already  whose  friendship  I  prize.  Neither  would  I 
say  that  all  my  Bridgewater  friends  can  be  reckoned 
under  the  figure  o,  for  it  would  be  unjust  both  to 
them  and  me.  No,  many,  many  are  the  choice  spir- 
its whom  I  can  number  as  my  friends,  and  to  meet 
whom  would  give  me  extreme  joy.  But  they  are  not 
all  such  intimate  acquaintances  that  I  feel  perfect 
freedom  in  their  presence.  Friendship  may  exist 
without  a  perfect  acquaintance.  Close  attachments 
may  be  formed  between  those  whose  everyday 
thoughts  and  feelings  are  unknown  to  each  other.  It 
is  not  necessary  that  our  simplest,  undressed,  and 
most  common  thoughts  should  be  known  to  another, 
in  order  to  gain  his  esteem,  attachment,  and  affec- 
tion. These  are  known  only  to  ourselves,  our  God, 
and  real  acquaintances.  We  sometimes  want  to  let 
these  thoughts  escape.  They  become  burdensome, 
and  it  is  then  that  we  feel  the  need  of  an  intimatey 
real  acquaintance  —  such  a  one  as  I  am  aching  for 
now,  before  whom  I  may  once  more  appear  just  as 
I  appear  to  myself." 

Kingston,    Dec.     i8,    1848:    "Another   beautiful 


xlviii  BIOGRAPHICAI.    SKETCH 

day.  School  has  been  large  and  pleasant.  Had 
forty  this  afternoon.  I  have  been  in  good  spirits, 
and  the  scholars  appeared  so,  too.  In  fact,  I  have 
felt  quite  happy  all  day.     This  evening  I  have  made 

two  visits  :  one  at  Deacon 's,  a  fine  old  man  of 

sixty-eight,  who  has  a  very  comfortable  home,  quite 
a  property,  a  social  wife,  and  a  handsome  niece  living 

with  him  ;  the  other  at  Mr. 's,  who  has  also  a 

comfortable  home,  with  a  fine  wife  and  three  children. 
They  are  all  boys,  and  all  come  to  school.  They 
came  part  way  home  with  me,  and  commenced  talk- 
ing about  the  stars.  I  pointed  out  some  of  the  finest 
constellations  and  brightest  stars,  giving  some  of 
their  names.  They  appeared  interested  and  desirous 
of  knowing  more,  were  very  respectful,  and  seemed 
happy  to  have  my  company.  I  was  no  less  so  to 
have  theirs.  It  really  did  me  good.  I  wish  I  could 
be  with  a  few  of  my  scholars  at  a  time  every  evening, 
I  do  not  like  to  see  them  shy  of  me.  I  want  to  be 
free,  candid,  and  familiar  with  them  ;  I  want  to  make 
them  feel  that  I  am  not  merely  their  '  master,'  but 
their  real  teacher  and  friend.  This  day  has  been 
one  of  hope  ;  may  it  not  be  succeeded  by  a  morrow 
of  disappointment  !  Wilt  thou  bless  it,  O  Father, 
from  whom  all  our  blessings  flow  !  May  I  receive 
fresh  encouragement  and  renewed  strength  to  press 
forward  in  the  responsible  work  I  have  undertaken, 
doing  nothing  to  the  injury  of  my  little  flock,  but 
with  thy  assistance  bringing  them  nearer  and  nearer 
to  thee!" 

Kingston,  Jan.  3,  1849:  "I  have  to-day  attempted 
a  little  matter  of  discipline  which  may  be  worth  re- 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  xHx 

cording.  I  have  noticed  for  several  days  small  balls 
of  paper  in  considerable  numbers  upon  the  floor, 
and  had  discovered  two  of  the  rogues  who  helped  to 
get  them  there,  but  had  not  informed  them  of  it,  as 
I  was  satisfied  there  must  be  others.  After  all  the 
books  were  laid  aside  this  forenoon,  I  mentioned  the 
circumstance,  and  also  that  I  knew  two  of  the  offend- 
ers, but  did  not  give  their  names.  I  spoke  some 
time  of  the  wrongfulness  of  the  act ;  that  the  fact 
that  they  had  tried  to  conceal  it  was  strong  evidence 
that  those  scholars  who  had  performed  it  knew  it 
was  wrong  and  that  they  might  justly  deserve  pun- 
ishment ;  but  that  I  was  in  hopes  the  thing  might  be 
stopped  without  it.  Here  one  of  the  boys  volun- 
tarily confessed  himself  guilty,  and  gave  to  me  the 
instrument  he  had  used  to  blow  the  paper  about  the 
room.  I  then  asked  all  who  would  be  willing  to  ac- 
knowledge the  fault,  had  they  committed  it,  to  rise. 
All  rose.  I  then  asked  all  who  had  done  so  to  rise. 
Eight  of  the  boys  rose,  several  of  whom,  without  my 
asking,  resolved  that  they  should  not  do  so  again. 
I  then  asked  how  many  were  willing  to  join  in  the 
resolution,  and  found  that  all  were.  Then  I  told 
them  I  should  inquire  at  the  close  of  the  week  how 
many  had  kept  their  resolution.  It  has  been  kept 
well  this  afternoon,  as  far  as  I  have  observed." 

Kingston,  Feb.  4,  1849:  "A  week  ago  to-day  I 
went  over  to  Duxbury  to  see  Mr.  Kendall,  and  had 
the  good  fortune  to  meet  some  other  Normal  friends. 
I  had  a  very  fine  visit,  well  worth  the  walk  over  and 
back  again.  I  have  come  back,  though,  with  my  de- 
sires for  going  to  College  rekindled.     Mr.  Kendall 


1  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

will  enter  at  next  Commencement — wish  I  were 
ready  to  go  with  him,  but  how  I  am  to  go  is  not  yet 
revealed  to  me.  Sometimes  I  feel  as  though  I  would 
say,  I  will  go,  and  will  press  forward  in  spite  of  all 
opposition  until  my  will  \s  affected." 

Sandwich,  May  20,  1849:  "The  characteristic  un- 
fixedness  of  my  vocation  has  at  length  brought  me 
here,  just  into  the  limits  of  Cape  Cod.  I  engaged  a 
school  here,  before  I  went  home  after  my  winter's 
siege  in  Kingston.  .  .  .  My  winter's  labors,  trials,  and 
failures  had  somewhat  diminished  my  zeal ;  they  had 
given  me  a  truer  and  more  practical  sense  of  the 
duties,  responsibilities,  and  difficulties  of  the  profes- 
sion I  had  chosen,  and  had  taught  me  the  useful, 
though  humiliating  fact,  that  I  possessed  not  the 
ability  to  do  what  I  had  once  looked  upon  as  an  easy 
task,  or  rather  no  task  at  all.  But,  though  I  had 
gained  a  more  perfect  knowledge  of  my  inability  for 
the  work  of  teaching,  though  my  ambition  was  some- 
what humbled,  my  hopes  crushed,  my  prospects 
clouded,  yet  duty  pointed  out  no  other  course  of  life ; 
inclination  fastened  upon  no  easier  nor  more  lucra- 
tive employment.  To  become  a  teacher  had  long 
been  the  object  of  my  desires,  for  which  I  had  in 
some  measure  prepared  myself,  and  to  attain  which 
I  had  met  some  crosses,  encountered  some  opposi- 
tion at  the  risk  of  being  thought  wanting  in  filial 
duty,  made  some  sacrifices.  Thank  Heaven  that 
my  purpose  was  too  fixed,  my  plan  of  life  too  far 
matured,  to  be  overthrown  by  fickle  fortune  or  un- 
dermined by  dark  discouragement.  Most  rejoiced 
was  I,  when  I  reached  home,  to  find  that  I  should 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  U 

no  longer  have  to  oppose  a  father's  wishes  by  con- 
tinuing in  the  course  I  had  commenced.  His  views 
seemed  more  nearly  to  accord  with  my  own  than 
they  had  ever  done  before.  He  was  perfectly  will- 
ing, and  I  think  considered  it  best,  that  I  should 
pursue  teaching;  indeed,  I  did  not  complete  my  en- 
gagement here,  until  he  freely  expressed  his  con- 
sent. I  can  now  labor  more  easily,  more  freely ;  a 
burden  seems  lifted  from  my  shoulders.  But  I  fear 
I  have  soon  again  to  oppose  his  wishes,  or  give  up 
hopes  which  have  long  lived  in  ray  bosom  with  little 
prospect  of  becoming  realities,  until  recently,  when 
they  have  assumed  the  more  definite  form  of  plans, 
only  awaiting  time  to  become  actions.  I  have  finally 
formed  the  determination  to  go  to  college,  and  have 
even  set  the  day.  If  all  things  go  favorably  till  then, 
I  think  of  entering  one  year  from  next  Commence- 
ment. Am  going  to  spend  all  my  spare  time  this 
summer  in  preparing.  I  am  induced  to  take  this 
step,  not  because  I  think  college  celebrity  is  neces- 
sary to  success,  but  because  I  think  college  study 
will  make  me  more  useful.  Men  to  become  self- 
taught  must  possess  a  peculiar  turn  of  mind,  and  it 
will  not  do  for  all  or  for  many  to  trust  to  themselves. 
I  am  aware  I  shall  go  among  numerous  temptations, 
but  I  believe  I  shall  be  preserved.  We  live  in  a 
world  of  temptation  which  we  cannot  shun,  but  must 
meet.  No  one  can  live  through  the  college  course 
without  being  strengthened  in  virtue  or  tainted  with 
vice.  The  former  is  certainly  desirable,  and  by  cau- 
tion, watchfulness,  and  prayer  can  be  attained." 
North  Dartmouth,  June  26,  1849:  "Rose  at  half 


Hi  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

past  four.  Dressed  and  went  into  the  garden,  and 
worked,  with  the  exception  of  twenty  minutes  for 
breakfast,  till  half  past  eight.  Came  in,  bathed, 
changed  clothes,  and  commenced  studying  at  nine  — 
continued  till  twelve  —  read  six  pages  of  Caesar. 
Was  intending  to  study  Greek  this  afternoon,  but 
father  wanted  me  to  make  hay,  which  I  have  done ; 
and,  to  testify  to  it,  I  have  six  fine  blisters  upon  my 
hands  —  my  shoulders  feel  lame  and  my  legs  very 
stiff.  This  evening  I  have  read  three  and  a  half 
more  pages  of  Caesar,  which  finishes  the  fourth  book. 
I  commenced  it  last  night ;  there  are  seventeen  and 
a  half  pages  in  it.  The  clock  strikes  ten,  and  I  must 
go  to  bed.     Rise  to-morrow  morning  at  four." 

North  Dartmouth,  June  27,  1849:  "Have  been 
to  monthly  meeting.  There  were  several  strange 
ministers  present,  two  from  England.  One  of  them 
delivered  a  long  discourse  on  the  commencement 
and  experience  of  the  true  Christian.  I  presume  it 
was  good  Quaker  doctrine,  but  it  savored  too  much 
of  '  human  depravity '  and  of  *  self-abhorrence '  to 
suit  my  taste.  I  cannot  understand  why  we  should 
so  utterly  and  completely  abhor  ourselves.  God  has 
made  us,  and  should  we  abhor  any  of  his  works  .■* 
We  should  abhor  and  endeavor  to  cast  out  the  sin 
that  is  within  us ;  but  that  we  are  all  sin  I  cannot 
believe.  A  great  deal  of  Quaker  theology  grows 
more  and  more  mysterious  to  me,  the  more  I  think 
about  it.  I  have  always  considered  myself  a  Quaker 
on  all  the  great  points  of  their  doctrine,  but  it  is 
merely  because  I  have  been  accustomed  to  take 
them  as  truth  without  any  thought  at  all.     T  am  in- 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  llii 

clined  to  believe  that  this  is  the  case  with  a  great 
many  birthright  members,  and  that  the  Society  suf- 
fers greatly  from  such  members.  They  are  Quakers 
simply  because  they  were  brought  up  in  the  Society, 
havinc:  no  actual  convincement  of  the  truth  of  its 
doctrines.  My  mind  at  present  is  totally  unsettled 
in  regard  to  what  orthodoxy  and  even  more  liberal 
sects  would  deem  the  essentials  of  a  Christian.  I 
never  expect  and  never  care,  while  I  have  my  pres- 
ent views,  to  find  a  church  whose  creed  I  would 
adopt.  I  am  perfectly  sick  of  everything  in  the 
shape  of  a  religious  creed.  What  a  vast  variety 
there  is !  And  all  interpretations  of  the  Bible ! 
One  would  suppose  that,  if  the  Bible  was  revealed 
from  God,  it  would  be  sufficiently  plain  to  every 
understanding." 

North  Dartmouth,  June  29,  1849:  "'When  I 
would  do  good,  evil  is  present  with  me.'  I  some- 
times almost  despair  of  there  being  any  one  to  help 
me,  even  an  Almighty.  What  evidence  have  I  of 
his  existence .''  Do  I  even  feel  an  inward  conscious- 
ness that  he  exists,  as  I  do  of  myself  ?  Have  I  a 
real,  living,  moving  faith  in  the  superintending  provi- 
dence of  a  God,  or  do  I  only  believe  in  him  from  tra- 
dition ?  O  Almighty  One,  if  there  be  such  a  being, 
what  art  thou  ?  How  can  we  know  thee  —  how  feel 
thee  ?  Is  there  such  a  thing  as  man's  actually  hold- 
ing communion  with  thee  .**  If  so,  what  is  it.''  How- 
can  it  be  done  ?  Can  my  spirit  ever  attain  to  this 
honor  .-•  How  can  spirits  mingle  together  ?  How 
k/wza  they  mingle  together,  and  the  time  .''  How  do 
they  become  acquainted.?     How  enjoy  each  other's 


liv  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

society  ?  O,  will  my  poor,  sinning,  trembling  soul 
ever  know  these  things  ?  Shall  I  ever  have  faith  — 
shall  I  ever  cease  to  doubt  ?  I  know  that  all  Nature 
speaks  a  God  ;  but  I  want  to  know,  I  want  to  feel,  I 
want  to  speak  to  that  God  myself.  I  feel  sometimes 
impatient  for  my  spirit  to  leave  this  body,  that  I  may 
know  what  is  behind  the  curtain  that  is  spread  be- 
tween time  and  eternity.  But  am  I  prepared  for 
this }  If  Death  should  come  to-night,  this  moment, 
should  I  be  willing  to  meet  it.-*  O  no,  I  should  plead 
for  a  little  longer  ;  I  should  try,  I  fear,  to  cheat  Death 
by  fair  promises  of  what  I  would  do,  if  he  would 
suffer  me  to  remain.  What  omissions  of  duty,  what 
commissions  of  evil,  would  crowd  themselves  upon 
me!  And  when  will  they  be  less  —  ah,  when.-'  I 
pray  that  it  may  be  soon." 

North  Dartmouth,  July  i,  1849:  "My  mind  has 
become  somewhat  calmed,  though  it  is  still  full  of 
doubts  in  respect  to  almost  all  the  great  doctrines 
of  our  various  religious  sects,  and  particularly  those 
of  Quakers.  I  long  ago  resolved  to  submit  every- 
thing, whether  of  a  religious  nature  or  otherwise,  to 
the  test  of  reason,  being  satisfied  that  Christianity 
is  a  rational  religion,  and  capable  of  withstanding  the 
search  and  the  criticism  of  the  keenest  intellect.  I 
knew  that  I  considered  many  things  as  true  solely 
because  I  had  been  brought  up  among  them,  where 
their  truth  was  never  questioned ;  and  I  know  I  hold 
many  such  things  about  me  now,  but  they  are  be- 
coming less  and  less.  Every  day  I  find  myself  rest- 
ing upon  another's  convictions,  pinning  my  faith 
upon  another's  sleeve ;  and  every  day  I  try  to  tear 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  Iv 

myself  away,  even  though  strongly  attached  thereto, 
and  I  find  nowhere  else  to  rest.  Sometimes  I  feel 
as  though  the  very  foundations  of  my  soul  were 
breaking  up,  and  that  I  should  never  find  a  settling 
place.  But  it  matters  not  whether  I  ever  come  to 
any  conclusion  upon  these  subtile  points  of  theology, 
if  I  can  only  settle  upon  true  Christianity.  But, 
should  I  tell  all  my  thoughts,  I  should  hardly  be 
considered  a  friend  of  this  by  very  many  professing 
Christians.  The  great  points  that  are  a  burden  to 
me  now  are  the  character  of  Christ,  the  atonement, 
the  nature  of  salvation,  immediate  revelation,  the 
authority  and  inspiration  of  the  scriptures,  the  min- 
istry and  worship.  Among  this  vast  multitude  com- 
prising what  are  considered  the  most  essential  truths 
of  the  Gospel,  I  do  not  feel  that  it  is  essentially 
necessary,  however  desirable  it  may  be,  to  decide 
upon  either.  The  language  arises  spontaneously 
over  all  my  inward  strivings  :  '  If  thou  doest  well, 
shalt  thou  not  be  accepted  .'* '  Teach  me,  O  God,  of 
thine  own  wisdom  !  " 

The  last  three  extracts,  portraying  as  remarkable 
and  as  pathetic  a  struggle  as  ever  took  place  in  a 
human  soul  between  the  imprisoning  forces  of  an 
inherited  thought-system  and  the  irresistible  vital 
energies  of  nascent  reason,  could  not  have  been 
omitted  without  leaving  in  utter  obscurity  the  origin 
of  much  that  was  noblest  in  Potter's  character  and 
career.  But  I  have  hesitated  not  a  little  whether  it 
would  be  wise  to  publish  without  at  least  one 
omission  the  record  of  his  thoughts  on  the  day  of 
his   majority.     Ought   so   frank  a  reference  to   his 


Ivi  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

personal  appearance  as  is  contained  in  the  following 
entry  to  be  submitted  to  alien  eyes  ?  In  answering 
this  question,  I  have  allowed  myself  to  be  governed 
by  the  effect  of  that  passage  on  my  own  mind.  It  is 
so  characteristic,  so  full  of  a  pitiless  sincerity  and 
uncompromising  truthfulness  and  rarest  freedom 
from  all  the  delusions  of  personal  self-conceit,  that 
it  seems  to  me  to  have  sprung  unconsciously  out  of 
the  innermost  nobilities  of  his  nature,  and  to  tell  as 
nothing  else  could  how  strong  a  passion  for  truth 
burned  in  his  heart's  core.  Even  if  this  early  pho- 
tograph of  the  boy  had  remained  a  correct  likeness  of 
the  man,  it  would  still  be  invaluable  in  its  ethical 
aspect.  But  whoever  saw  Potter  in  public  when  his 
fine  face  was  lighted  up  with  the  glow  of  great  ideas 
and  lofty  ideals, —  whoever  met  him  in  private  and 
had  insight  enough  to  see  the  inward  majesty  of  the 
soul  mirrored  in  the  whole  outward  aspect  of  the 
body, —  must  recognize,  in  this  striking  contrast 
between  the  boy  and  the  man,  a  wonderful  instance 
of  the  way  in  which  Nature  makes  the  psychical 
dominate  the  physical  and  write  out  the  story  of  the 
victorious  spirit  in  the  gradual  transfiguration  of 
features  and  form.  Let  the  ruthless  description 
stand,  if  only  as  a  foil  to  the  serene  and  noble 
presence  which  we  all  loved  to  see,  but  shall  see  no 
more  ! 

Taunton,  Feb.  i,  1850:  "My  twenty-first  birth- 
day. I  am  now  legally  a  man,  a  /"r^^-man.  The  day 
has  come  which  years  ago,  in  my  early  youth,  I  was 
accustomed  to  anticipate  with  so  much  impatience 
and    hope.     Are    my    anticipations    realized }     No. 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  Ivii 

The   years  between  looked  long  and  weary,     I  ex- 
pected   to  find  myself  at   twenty-one  a  new  being, 
possessing  hardly  a  quality  by  which  I  could  recog- 
nize my  then  insignificant  existence.     I  thought  to 
feel,  to  act,  and  to  know  myself  differently.     I  be- 
lieved I  should  scarcely  identify  the  boy  in  the  man ; 
that  I  should  outgrow  myself,  and  by  some  mysteri- 
ous process  be  converted  into  another  being  of  dif- 
ferent perceptions  and  functions.     But  do  I  feel,  act, 
and  know  myself  any  differently  from  what  I  did  ten 
years  ago.?     Can  I  not  identify  the  spindle-bodied, 
long-legged,  large-nosed,  freckle-faced,  red-haired  boy 
of    eleven,    in    the    somewhat    taller   but    similarly 
featured  form    that    I    now    wear }     And   do    I    not 
inwardly  perceive  myself  the  same  as  then  }     I  cer- 
tainly do.     The  man   is  but  the  boy  larger  grown. 
But  have  I  not  changed  }     I  as  certainly  have.     But 
the  change  has  been  rather  a  change  in  size  than  in 
nature  —  a  development   of  what  I  then  possessed 
rather  than  an  exchange  for  something  else  —  a  slow 
and  steady  growth  from  the  green  and  tender  sapling 
to  the  height  and  magnitude  of  a  tree.     Thus  grows 
the  character — so  slow  the  progress,  so  gradual  the 
transition  from  one  stage   to   another,  so  perfectly 
adapted  the  past  that  is  to  the  past  that  has  been, 
and  the  past  that  will  be  to  the  past  that  is,  that  we 
never  lose  the  consciousness  of  its  sameness.     But, 
could  I  have  been  transported  at  once  from  myself 
in  1840  to  myself  in   1850,   I  opine  I  should  not  find 
it   so    easy   to    know   myself;    and,    could    several 
characters  be  similarly  transported  across  ten  years 
of  life,  and  then  shaken  up  together  and  drawn  out 


Iviii  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

by  those  who  were  their  owners,  I  imagine  there 
would  be  some  curious  mismatching.  What  a 
scramble  there  would  be  after  a  character !  And 
what  kind  of  a  character  would  be  most  in  demand  ? 
Sinful  and  grovelling  as  many  are,  and  prone  as  we 
all  are  to  evil,  yet,  so  strong  is  the  natural  love  of 
the  heart  for  the  virtues  and  the  holy,  that  I  am 
inclined  strongly  to  the  belief  that  each  would  choose 
and  claim  a  virtuous  character.  Men  do  not 
plunge  headlong  into  sin,  any  more  than  they  rise  at 
once  to  a  sublime  height  of  virtue.  But  no  one 
sinks  so  low  that  he  cannot  distinguish  and  honor 
high-minded,  consistent  virtue,  and  that  he  would 
not  gladly  exchange  his  evil  for  good,  could  he  do  so 
by  a  simple  act  of  the  will.  But  the  struggle  is  long 
and  hard  from  vice  to  virtue ;  his  heart  fails  within, 
and  the  world  without  affords  little  sympathy  or  en- 
couragement.— Twenty-one  years  of  my  life  have 
gone;  more  than  a  quarter,  should  I  live  to  a  'good 
old  age,'  and  a  much  greater  part,  probably,  of  what 
my  life  will  probably  be.  I  do  not  count  upon  a 
long  sojourn  here,  nor  do  I  wish  it,  I  scarcely 
anticipate  another  twenty-one  years.  But  how  dif- 
ferent the  twenty-one  years  to  come  from  the  twenty- 
one  years  that  have  passed  !  These  have  been  spent 
mostly  in  the  quiet  of  home ;  now  I  am  to  come  out 
into  the  broad  world.  The  past  is  the  foundation  on 
which  the  future  is  to  be  built.  It  is  yet  to  be  seen 
how  it  will  stand  the  stormy  elements  of  human 
society  ;  whether  the  structure  of  active  life  raised 
thereon  will  wave  hither  and  thither  at  every  shift  of 
public  opinion,  and  tremble  at  the  blow  of  the  critic's 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  Hx 

pen,  and  fall  before  the  rush  of  opposition,  or  whether 
it  will  stand  firm  and  unshaken,  ever  pointing  up- 
wards to  God  as  the  centre  of  trust  and  faith,  and  as 
if  upheld  by  the  strength  of  his  eternal  arm.  Prin- 
ciples that  I  have  formed  are  now  to  be  tested, 
theories  to  be  practised,  opinions  to  be  expressed, 
and  an  influence  to  be  thrown  out  into  the  mixed, 
fermenting  mass  of  human  materials  around  me. 
Am  I  ready  for  this  ?  Am  I  ready  for  life  ?  To  go 
out  into  the  world,  to  combat  its  ills,  to  withstand 
its  snares,  to  endure  its  scorn  and  meet  its  opposi- 
tion ?  Some  dread  to  die ;  I  rather  dread  to  live. 
Life  is  a  fearful,  awful  thing,  great  in  responsibilities, 
filled  with  duties.  But  it  must  be  met.  Its  responsi- 
bilities must  be  borne  ;  its  duties  must  be  performed  ; 
and  he  ojily  who  is  ready  for  these,  ready  to  live,  is 
ready  to  die!' 

Taunton,  July  17,  1850:  "Those  dreaded  days 
have  come  and  gone,  and  with  them  all  anxious 
thoughts  and  dreary  forebodings.  To  me  the  result 
is  more  than  satisfactory.  I  can  scarcely  realize  it. 
I  am  in  college  and  free  from  all  conditions  —  a 
thing  I  dared  not  dream  of.  I  expected  certainly  to 
have  two  or  three  deficiencies  to  make  up,  and  had 
made  up  my  mind  to  consider  myself  lucky  even 
with  these.  But  when,  last  evening,  I  took  in  my 
hand  the  proffered  paper,  hardly  daring  to  look  at 
it,  dreading  the  fate  it  was  to  reveal,  and  saw  the 
announcement  actually  written  out  in  words  that  I 
was  a  real  member  of  the  freshman  class  in  Harvard 
College,  clear  of  conditions,  my  mind  would  scarcely 
give   credit   to   my   senses.     But   so   it   was ;  yet  I 


Ix  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

could  not  believe  it,  until  I  was  assured  by  Mr. 
Wheelwright,  and  others  who  had  passed  through 
the  ordeal,  that  there  was  no  delusion.  My  joy 
was  irrepressible.  It  burst  through  every  pore  of 
my  skin,  lightened  every  motion  of  my  limbs,  could 
be  heard  in  every  sound  of  my  voice.  My  mind 
seemed  at  once  relieved  of  a  heavy  burden,  a  burden 
which  for  the  last  six  weeks  had  pressed  upon  it  so 
unremittingly  that  my  only  thought,  speech,  and  act 
had  been  in  reference  to  this  one  thing — -college. 
My  spirits  at  once  resumed  their  wonted  elasticity, 
and  with  a  light  heart  I  leaped  upon  an  omnibus,  in 
company  with  Mr.  W.  (who  seemed  equally  joyous 
at  the  success  of  his  three  candidates),  bound  for 
Boston  and  thence  for  Roxbury,  where  I  spent  the 
night.  An  occurrence  happened  in  Boston  rather 
calculated  to  check  the  exuberance  of  my  emotions. 
A  gentleman  who  left  the  omnibus  before  my- 
self took  my  valise  instead  of  his  own,  which  he  left 
for  me  and  bid  fair  to  be  as  much  use  to  me  as  mine 
to  him.  What  made  the  matter  worse  for  myself, 
in  the  ecstasy  of  feeling  with  which  I  left  Cambridge, 
I  entirely  forgot  to  take  my  pocketbook  from  my 
valise,  which  contained  all  my  money,  except  a  little 
change  in  my  pocket.  My  sudden  depression  of 
spirits  was  but  momentary,  however,  as  Mr.  Wheel- 
wright assured  me  that  he  knew  the  man  who  had 
taken  it,  that  he  was  a  good  honest  clergyman,  and 
would  probably  be  in  Cambridge  at  the  Commence- 
ment to-day,  when,  if  I  would  go  back  again,  I  might 
make  the  exchange.  Feeling  perfectly  satisfied  that 
I  should  get  the  valise  again,  I  comforted  myself  for 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  Ixi 

the  night,  being  without  a  change  of  clothing  and 
the  indispensables  of  making  a  toilet,  with  the 
thought  of  the  good  minister's  ideas  when  he  should 
find  that  he  had  purloined  a  valise,  and  was  without 
nightshirt  or  razor  and  perhaps  minus  some  of  his 
sermons.  This  morning  I  went  over  to  Cambridge, 
and  there  learned  by  inquiry  that  my  valise  was  left 
at  the  omnibus  office  in  Boston.  I  accordingly  went 
back  to  Boston,  made  the  exchange,  and  this  after- 
noon, tired,  heated  through  and  through  with  the 
burning  sun,  which  I  had  hardly  been  in  contact 
with  for  several  weeks,  dusty,  dirty,  sweaty,  and 
sleepy,  I  found  my  way  back  to  Taunton  again. 
'Action  and  reaction  are  equal  and  in  opposite  direc- 
tions '  is  no  less  a  truth  of  mental  than  of  physical 
philosophy ;  hence  I  am  now  beginning  to  experi- 
ence a  vacancy  of  life  and  activity  corresponding  to 
my  fulness  and  buoyancy  of  spirits  last  night. 
Sleep,  perhaps,  will  restore  me,  and  to  sleep  I  go." 

North  Dartmouth,  June  20,  185 1  :  "Spent  last 
week  at  Newport  —  went  on  with  father  to  the 
Yearly  Meeting,  which  I  had  given  up  all  thoughts 
of  ever  attending  again.  This  probably  is  the  last 
time.  I  find  little  in  the  Quaker  Society  that  com- 
mends itself  to  my  understanding  or  my  heart.  I 
am  no  Quaker  in  doctrine  or  in  spirit.  They  are 
too  Calvinistic  in  the  former,  too  sectarian  in  the 
latter,  I  do  not  like  this  keeping  apart  from  other 
societies  and  the  world.  We  want  more  of  brother- 
hood among  mankind  —  more  of  the  family  union; 
this  the  Quakers  do  not  cherish." 

Between  July  18,  185 1,  and  August  6,  1857,  when 


Ixii  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

he  "left  home  for  Europe,"  Potter  seems  to  have 
kept  no  journal ;  at  least,  none  has  been  found.  On 
August  9,  he  sailed  from  New  York  for  Europe, 
where  he  travelled  and  studied  over  a  year.  The 
following  passage  from  his  journal  on  the  outward 
voyage  is  of  more  than  usual  significance,  as  mark- 
ing a  phase  of  his  theological  thought  which  was 
never  wholly  abandoned  in  subsequent  years,  and 
yet  was  never  logically  developed  in  either  its  theo- 
retical or  its  practical  aspect  —  a  development  which, 
in  a  mind  so  conscientious  as  his,  would  have  led  to 
an  early  retirement  from  the  ministry.  The  concep- 
tion here  outlined  remained  undeveloped  even  in  his 
own  mind;  yet  I  think  it  was  a  source  of  some 
vagueness  and  confusion  in  his  preaching,  so  far 
as  its  philosophical  side  alone  was  concerned,  and 
would  have  impaired  even  its  practical  value,  if  his 
deep  religiousness  of  nature  had  not  come  to  the 
rescue  and  saved  him  from  a  too  rigorously  logical 
evolution  and  application  of  his  own  conception  :  — 
At  sea,  Aug.  14,  1857:  "The  lesson  that  I 
learned  from  the  ocean  was,  in  fact,  the  confirma- 
tion of  my  theology,  or  perhaps  more  properly  its 
reflection  :  namely,  that  the  Infinite  becomes  mani- 
fest to  itself  only  in  the  finite, —  that  the  Infinite, 
Absolute,  Eternal,  lies  as  a  vast  boundless  sea,  with- 
out soundings  and  without  horizon,  in  perfect,  un- 
conscious rest,  a  great  storehouse  of  powers  in  per- 
fect harmony  and  repose ;  so  soon  as  motion,  form, 
thought  appear,  so  soon  as  these  powers  come  into 
activity,  there  begins  the  finite.  Our  ship,  too,  as 
she  took  up  the  winds,  and   rode  triumphantly  over 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  Ixiii 

the  waves,  was  a  symbol  to  me  of  man's  relation  to 
God.  The  ship,  by  being  built  in  conformity  to  the 
ascertained  laws  of  fluids  and  of  mechanics,  was  able 
to  use  the  great  powers  that  lay  in  the  sea  and  the 
winds.  So  man,  learning  the  laws  of  his  being  and 
conforming  his  character  and  conduct  thereto,  brings 
into  action  the  very  power  and  strength  of  God." 

Berlin,  Oct.  15,  1857:  "To-night  I  am  in  new 
quarters  —  find  my  room  much  more  cheerful  than 
the  old  one  —  feel  more  at  home  and  better  able  to 
work.     I  had  quite  an  amusing  adventure  with  my 

WirtJi  as  I  left  him.  I  thought  his  bill  too  high, 
and  struck  off  from  it  one  thaler  and  ten  sgr.,  giving 
him  my  reasons.  Of  course,  they  were  not  suffi- 
cient for  him,  and  he  insisted  upon  the  whole.  I 
then  told  him  to  receipt  the  bill  for  so  much,  and,  if 
he  wanted  more,  to  go  to  the  Universitdtsgericht  — 
which  I  had  been  told  was  a  sure  way  to  bring  an 
exorbitant  Wirth  to  terms.  He  still  refused.  I 
then  told  him  to  make  out  an  honest  bill,  and  call 
upon  me  at  my  new  room  when  he  was  ready  to  set- 
tle it  honestly;  whereupon  I  took  my  carpet-bag  and 
shawl  to  go  out.  My  trunks  were  already  on  a 
droscJike  at  the  door.  He  stepped  quickly  before  me 
and  fastened  the  door,  calling  at  the  same  time  to 
his  wife  to  summon   a  policeman.     My    Wirth  and 

Wirthin  pleaded  their  cause  before  him  in  their 
fluent  German.  I,  luckily  perhaps,  knew  but  few 
words  for  stating  mine, —  told  him  the  proposals  I 
had  made,  which  I  again  repeated,  again  offering  to 
pay  what  I  thought  just  and  accept  the  bill  re- 
ceipted for  that  amount.     My  Wirth  still  not  acced- 


Ixiv  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

ing   to    this,  the    poHceman    told    me   to   leave   the 
things  I  had  in  the  room  for  security  and  go  without 
paying.     But,  not  knowing  precisely  what   security 
I  was  to  have  for  the  things,  which  were,  moreover, 
articles  of  indispensable   daily   use,  I    demurred   to 
the  decision.      The  policeman  went  off,  and  matters 
stood   as   before,  I  a  prisoner.     The   only  way  the 
WirtJi  could  keep  me  in  the  room  was  to  stay  there 
himself,  and  so  it  seemed  that  the  case  would  have 
to  be  decided  by  the  sitting-out  process,  which  we 
commenced  in  good  earnest.     My  Wirth  soon  began 
to  show  signs  of  yielding.     He  offered  to  strike  off 
one  item  of  ten  sgr.   (25  cents) ;  which  I  informed 
him  was  very  good,  but  not  enough.     Again  another 
long  sitting.     My    WirtJi,  perhaps,  begins  to  calcu- 
late how  many  shoes  he  is  likely  to  lose  the  mend- 
ing of  by  this  process ;  and  by  and  by  he  offers  to 
strike  off  another  item   of  one-half  a  thaler.     Pru- 
dence would  perhaps  have  suggested  that  I  should 
not  push  my  cause  any  farther,  as  he  had  now  come 
more  than  half  way  to  meet  me.     But,  as  I  regarded 
myself   the    representative   of  justice,  I  was   deter- 
mined to  stand  or  fall  with  it,  and  so  again  informed 
him    that    his  offer  was   very   good,    but    still    not 
enough.     Again  we  resort  to  the  argument  of   sit- 
ting, and  this  time  he  is  convinced  of  the  propriety 
of  my  proposal,  accepts  what  I  had  offered  to  pay 
him,  receipts  the  bill  for  so  much,  opens  the  door, 
and  I  go  out  in  triumph  with  my  property,  fully  con- 
fident that  I  shall  hear  nothing  more  of  my  Wirth  or 
the  balance  of  his  bill.     I  feel  that  I  almost  deserve 
a  triumphal    procession   from   the  hands   of  all  for- 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  1> 


XV 


eigners  for  this  victory  over  a  Berlin  cheat,  in  which 
I  trust  I  may  be  pardoned  if  I  take  an  honest 
pride." 

Berlin,  Oct.  31,  1857:  "I  was  summoned  to-day 
before  the  UnivcrsitdtsgericJit  to  answer  an  action 
entered  by  my  old  Wirth  to  recover  the  balance  of 
his  bill ;  and  so  the  comedy  is  likely  to  have  several 
more  acts,  and  perhaps  {for  me)  prove  a  tragedy, 
after  all.  To-day  there  wasn't  much  progress  in  the 
action  of  the  drama.  The  court  couldn't  understand 
English  and  the  defendant  couldn't  understand  Ger- 
man —  case  deferred  till  Dr.  Lolly,  the  English  pro- 
fessor, could  be  present  to  interpret.  As  I  went  out 
through  the  anteroom,  I  paid  five  sgr.  to  the  attend- 
ant as  the  summons-fee  —  noticed  that  my  Wirth 
went  out  without  any  such  demand  upon  him." 

Berlin,  Nov.  4,  1857:  "Third  Act  to  the  Drama 
of  My  WirtJi  s  Bill.  Again  summoned  before  the 
Universitdtsgericht,  Dr.  Lolly  present.  I  grounded 
my  defence  on  the  fact  that  several  German  students, 
to  whom  I  had  shown  the  bill,  had  all  declared  the 
charges  too  high  —  that  I  was  charged  more  for  the 
same  things  than  a  German  student  under  the  same 
Wirth.  In  reply,  the  court  said  that  it  was  a  custom 
in  regard  to  certain  services,  unless  there  was  a 
special  bargain  made  at  the  outset,  to  charge  double 
the  usual  price;  that  is,  a  custom  of  cheating  a 
stranger  until  he  shall  discover  the  cheat.  But 
custom  is  common  law,  and  so,  of  course,  my  defence 
in  this  respect  was  completely  demolished.  I  had 
made  another  point  against  a  special  item  for  doing 
errands,  nothing  of  consequence  having  been  done 


Ixvi  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

for  me.  Here  the  court  again  met  me  with  a  custom 
from  the  university  at  Halle,  where,  the  court  said, 
it  was  the  usage  among  the  amiable  race  of  Wirths  to 
make  an  extra  charge  for  everything,  even  for  the 
use  and  the  making  of  the  bed.  I  congratulated 
myself  that  I  had  not  gone  to  Halle,  but  did  not 
precisely  see  how  this  useful  piece  of  information 
met  my  objection  to  paying  for  service  which  had 
not  been  done  for  me  in  Berlin.  However,  the  court 
decided  against  me,  and  I  was  reduced  now  to  make 
a  point  out  of  an  item  which  I  had  before  allowed 
to  pass  unquestioned.  I  was  with  my  Wirth  but 
twenty-seven  days,  and,  of  course,  had  eaten  but 
twenty-seven  breakfasts ;  he  had  charged,  however, 
for  a  full  month,  thirty.  Being  reduced  to  extrem- 
ities, I  now  brought  up  this  fact,  which,  to  my  sur- 
prise, seemed  to  the  court  well  made;  but,  either 
from  the  fact  that  the  court  had  forgotten  its  arith- 
metic or  because  it  was  of  opinion  that  the  objection 
was  only  two-thirds  just,  it  deducted  two  breakfasts 
instead  of  three  (six  sgr.),  and  gave  its  decision  that 
I  should  pay  the  rest  of  the  bill.  I  was  not  disposed 
further  to  martyr  myself  for  the  sake  of  justice  by 
appealing  to  another  court,  having  had  quite  enough 
experience  of  courts,  and  so  laid  down  the  cash, 
which  my  Wirth  took  with  a  malicious  smile  of 
victory.  There  was  then  a  little  afterpiece  of  half 
a  thaler  to  pay  for  costs  of  the  suit,  and  five  sgr. 
more  for  the  second  summons.  I  again  observed 
that  my  Wirth  went  out  without  paying  anything. 
And  so  the  second  part  of  this  drama  ended  not 
quite  so  triumphantly  as  the  first  ;  I  am  now  a  con- 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  Ixvil 

qiiered,  crest-fallen  hero,  my  pride  and  my  plumes 
trailing  in  the  dust." 

Berlin,  Dec.  lo,  1857:  "My  Berlin  life  is  becom- 
ins:  so  regular  that  I  find  little  new  to  be  noted 
from  day  to  day.  The  lectures,  reading  German 
and  talking  whenever  I  can  find  opportunity,  con- 
certs, the  picture  gallery,  and  walks  in  and  about 
the  city,  use  up  my  time.  As  in  America,  so  here 
I  find  myself  generally  alone.  My  progress  in  Ger- 
man is  almost  imperceptible.  To  master  the  lan- 
guage must  be  the  labor  of  a  life-time.  I  hope, 
however,  to  be  able  to  enjoy  Goethe  and  Schiller  in 
their  own  tongue.  I  am  now  reading  Iphigenie  von 
Taiiris  with  great  delight." 

Berlin,  Dec.  15,  1857:  "The  greatest  day  I  have 
yet  had  in  Berlin.  Saw  Humboldt  at  the  American 
minister's,  and  had  an  opportunity  of  hearing  him 
converse  for  a  couple  of  hours.  The  Americans  in 
the  city  were  all  invited  there  to  meet  him.  As  he 
entered  the  room  and  we  all  rose  to  receive  him,  he 
seemed  a  little  embarrassed,  but,  as  soon  as  he  com- 
menced to  talk,  became  perfectly  at  ease.  In  his 
manners  he  is  extremely  simple  and  childlike. 
Though  in  his  eighty-ninth  year,  and  this  winter 
weakened  by  sickness,  he  would  not  sit  so  long  as 
the  ladies  were  standing.  In  stature  he  is  much 
below  the  medium  size,  or,  at  least,  seems  so  now 
that  he  is  bent  somewhat  with  years  ;  but  his  head 
is  enormous,  very  high  and  large  in  front,  and  quite 
thickly  covered  with  gray  hair  —  his  face  rather 
small  and  flushed,  eyes  small,  but  very  bright  and 
piercing.     In  conversation  he  is  wonderfully  fluent, 


Ixviii  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

and  very  rapid  in  his  transitions  from  one  topic  to 
another.  He  shows  his  immense  learning,  but  with- 
out the  sHghtest  appearance  of  show.  There  is  little 
need  that  any  one  should  talk  except  to  answer  his 
questions,  of  which  he  puts  very  many.  He  is  still 
lively,  brilliant,  and  fond  of  humor  —  told  a  story 
capitally  of  a  man  who  some  twenty  years  ago  took 
a  plaster  cast  of  him.  The  man,  he  said,  remarked 
that  he  was  always  most  fortunate  with  the  casts 
of  men  who  died  soon  after  he  took  them.  With 
a  cast  of  Schiller  (Schleiermacher  ?)  he  was  very 
fortunate,  since  he  happily  died  a  short  time  after 
it  was  taken,  so  that  there  was  a  large  demand  for 
it,  and  he  sold  a  great  number.  '  The  man,  I  think,' 
says  Humboldt,  'must  have  been  very  unhappy  with 
mine  and  very  angry  with  me,  since  that  was  twenty 
years  ago  and  I  live  yet.'  Stuart,  he  said,  painted 
a  portrait  of  him  while  in  America,  for  Jefferson, 
which  was  very  good.  He  speaks  English  fluently, 
yet  makes  mistakes  —  forgets  languages,  he  says,  as 
he  grows  older  and  ceases  to  use  them.  He  fre- 
quently exclaimed  in  the  course  of  his  conversation 
against  his  'horrid  English' — remarked  that  the 
similarity  of  the  German  and  English  makes  it 
more  difficult  for  a  native  of  one  country  to  speak 
well  the  language  of  the  other,  since  he  is  con- 
tinually making  literal  translations  and  so  failing 
in  idioms.  Some  one  asked  him  if  he  saw  Jeffer- 
son while  in  America.  He  replied  very  quickly, 
'  I  saw  dia  Jefferson,  and  that  is  the  reason  why  I 
am  so  ignorant  of  the  United  States.  I  was  in 
the  United  States  but  three  months,  half  of  which 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  Ixix 

I  spent  with  Jefferson  at  Washington.'  He  was  in 
the  United  States  in  1802  or  1803.  His  memory 
is  most  extraordinary,  yet  becoming  somewhat  im- 
paired with  regard  to  recent  everyday  affairs.  He 
knows  our  early  history  most  accurately  —  better,  I 
think,  than  did  any  of  his  American  audience  — 
gives  dates  as  if  he  were  reading  from  a  book.  He 
had  read  Professor  Lieber's  Geology  of  South  Car- 
olina—  thought  it  excellent,  and  wished  that  Lieber 
might  be  sent  as  a  geologist  to  California,  of  which 
all  the  geological  accounts  he  had  seen  were  very 
confused  and  gave  him  no  idea  of  the  formation  of 
the  land  there.  He  spoke  several  times,  and  with 
earnestness,  of  the  bad  influence  of  excessive  im- 
migration upon  our  country  —  thought  the  evil  was 
not  sufficiently  apprehended  by  our  people,  that  the 
foreign  element  would  before  long  give  us  much 
trouble,  and,  he  feared,  prove  disastrous  to  the  gov- 
ernment. He  is  at  present  at  work  upon  the  fifth 
volume  of  the  Kosmos,  getting  it  ready  for  the 
press,  in  which  he  seems  to  be  insensible  to  fatigues 
and  the  infirmities  of  age.  His  step  was  a  little 
uncertain,  as  he  went  down  the  stairs  to  take  his 
carriage,  and  his  servant  supported  him.  And  I 
thought,  as  I  saw  him  move  away,  that,  had  I  waited 
to  visit  Europe  twelve  months  later,  it  would  have 
been  too  late  to  see  this  greatest  marvel  of  learning 
that  this  age,  or  perhaps  any  age,  has  known." 

Heidelberg,  Sept.  7,  1858  :  "I  got  a  new  view  and 
a  most  magnificent  sunset  this  evening  from  the 
Geissberg.  The  whole  Rhine  valley  seemed  to  be 
covered  with  an  atmosphere  of  molten  gold.     And, 


IXX  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

as  I  was  returning  to  my  room  by  the  road  that 
winds  around  the  side  of  the  hill,  I  came  upon  an- 
other view  of  the  town  and  Neckar  valley,  as  charm- 
ing as  any  I  have  found.  The  castle  is  also  seen  to 
good  advantage.  One  is  much  lower  down,  indeed, 
than  the  summit  of  the  Geissberg,  but,  by  the  help 
of  a  platform  which  has  been  built  out  upon  a  pro- 
jecting cliff,  stands  almost  directly  over  the  town, 
and  looks  down  into  the  streets  and  squares  and 
yards  of  the  houses.  As  I  stood  there,  the  bells 
were  ringing  out  their  evening  summons  to  rest, 
while  the  busy  crowds  were  hurrying  through  the 
streets  on  the  last  errands  of  the  day.  The  night 
crept  slowly  down  the  valley  of  the  Neckar,  drawing 
his  curtain  around  one  object  after  another,  till  at 
last  he  wrapped  the  old  castle  up  in  his  thickest  vest- 
ures of  black  and  spread  out  a  milder  darkness  over 
the  whole  expanse  of  the  great  Rhine  plain.  Only 
in  the  town  was  his  course  resisted,  where  the  lamp- 
lighters with  their  ladders  were  running  through  the 
streets,  and  each  marking  his  path  by  the  train  of 
fires  he  left  behind  him." 

Heidelberg,  Oct,  3,  1858:  "To-morrow  I  leave 
Heidelberg  for  Italy,  and  so  to-day  I  have  been  visit- 
ing for  the  last  time  and  taking  leave  of  all  my  fa- 
vorite haunts.  I  have  no  friends  to  part  with  — 
nothing  but  nature  and  the  castle,  I  stood  long  to- 
night, just  after  sunset,  upon  the  great  terrace,  and 
gazed  upon  the  noble  ruin,  till  the  shadows  of  night 
enveloped  it.  More  lovingly  than  ever  did  the  ivy 
seem  to  cling  around  the  old  weather-beaten  stones, 
as   if  to  hold  them  up  against  the  assaults  of  time 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  IXXI 

and  the  elements.  The  trees  within  the  walls,  look- 
ing through  the  windows  and  reaching  out  their 
arms,  I  imagined,  were  inviting  in  the  birds  to  give 
them  shelter  for  the  night.  And  with  what  strength 
the  great  octagonal  tower  stood  there  against  the 
western  sky !  And  the  hill-side  below  the  ruin,  with 
its  fine  wood  of  locusts,  seemed  to  decline  more 
gracefully  than  ever  into  the  green  lawn  beneath, 
and  then  to  slope  away  into  the  Neckar  valley  and 
the  shadows  of  evening.  I  had  previously  taken  my 
last  look  at  the  old  knightly  statues  in  their  niches 
of  stone  and  ivy,  and  at  the  beautiful  front  of  Otto 
Heinrich's  Building,  which,  according  to  the  books, 
was  constructed  from  a  design  by  Michel  Angelo. 
If  so,  one  may  still  venture  to  admire  it.  It  is  a  cu- 
rious circumstance  that  on  this  wall  are  combined 
the  statues  of  Christian  saints,  of  Roman  celebrities, 
and  of  heathen  divinities ;  and  at  the  very  top,  pro- 
jecting entire  above  the  whole  ruin,  and  in  such  an 
exposed  position  that  it  seems  a  marvel  they  have  not 
been  thrown  down  in  any  of  the  convulsions  which 
the  castle  has  suffered,  are  the  statues  of  the  two 
pagan  gods,  Jupiter  and  Pluto.  They  stand  there, 
overlooking  the  whole  ruin  and  town,  as  if  to  teach 
modern  visitors  humiliation  at  the  thought  of  the 
Christian  scenes  of  war  and  outrage  which  these  old 
heathen  deities  have  v/itnessed  from  their  hi2:h  sta- 
tions,  and  also  to  proclaim  that  heathenism  had  its 
side  of  truth  which  neither  time  can  injure  nor  op- 
posing systems  shake  to  pieces.  I  lingered  long  in 
the  enchanted  grounds  after  the  crowd  of  Sunday 
visitors  had  departed,  and  then  went  up  on  the  hill- 


Ixxii  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

side  back  of  the  castle,  where  on  music-days  I  have 
often  sat  under  the  great  chestnuts  in  order  to  get 
away  from  the  noise  of  tongues  and  beer-glasses.  I 
have  fancied,  too,  that  the  music,  as  it  came  wind- 
ing up  among  the  trunks  of  the  old  trees,  was  all 
the  sweeter  for  the  fragrance  of  the  fresh  air  ana 
the  foliage  which  it  caught  in  the  ascent.  It  was 
here  that  I  took  my  final  leave  of  the  castle,  to  re- 
turn to  my  room  to  the  very  unsentimental  business 
of  packing." 

Verona,  Oct.  9,  1858:  "I  was  struck,  too,  with 
the  fact  that  many  of  the  monuments  [in  the  ceme- 
tery at  Brescia]  had  been  defaced  with  writing  and 
images  in  pencil,  while  the  more  costly  were  pro- 
tected from  such  desecration  by  a  covering  of  iron 
net-work.  Could  any  American  boy  scribble  upon  a 
tombstone  .■'  Perhaps  there  is  something  supersti- 
tious in  that  feeling  of  awe  with  which  we  at  home 
are  accustomed  to  walk  among  graves ;  and  yet,  let 
us  have  this  superstition  a  thousand  times  rather 
than  the  Italian,  or  perhaps  more  truly  Catholic,  in- 
difference to  the  dead.  I  saw  the  same  hollow 
heartlessness  more  strikingly  exhibited  at  a  funeral 
ceremony  in  one  of  the  churches.  Some  priests 
were  performing  the  usual  burial  ceremony  over  a 
cofifin  in  the  centre  of  the  church.  I  approached, 
feeling  almost  as  if  I  were  an  intruder.  It  was  the 
coffin  of  a  child.  But  there  was  no  mother  there  to 
shed  her  last  tear  over  its  remains,  nor  a  single 
mourner  around  it.  There  was  no  one  but  the 
priests  to  perform  their  hollow  service,  and  a  few 
ragged  children,  who  had  followed  the  coffin  in  from 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  Ixxiii 

curiosity,  or,  as  I  afterwards  saw,  for  its  spoils. 
The  ceremony  over,  the  priests  departed.  The  sex- 
ton, with  little  regard  to  its  contents,  gave  the  coffin 
into  the  hands  of  four  of  the  children,  and  it  was 
carried  out  into  a  side  room.  Here,  with  as  much 
handling  as  if  it  had  been  a  bale  of  goods,  it  was 
stripped  of  its  black  drapery  and  of  various  orna- 
ments of  lace,  gilding,  and  artificial  flowers.  These 
were  eagerly  divided  and  carried  off  by  the  children, 
while  the  coffin,  tossed  aside  upon  some  others  that 
stood  there,  was  left  a  shapeless  rough  box." 

Padua,  Oct.  13,  1858:  "We  here  picked  up  a 
cicerone,  and  in  a  few  hours  saw  all  that  is  worth 
seeing  of  this  once  famous  town.  There  is  not 
much  that  I  shall  remember  except  a  picture  by 
Guido  Reni  of  'John  in  the  Wilderness,'  which  im- 
pressed me  very  much.  I  have  seen  nothing  of 
Guido's  before  that  I  liked.  But  this  is  just  such  a 
painting  as  I  would  like  to  have  in  my  room,  ever 
before  me.  The  attitude  is  a  wonderful  combination 
of  ease  with  energy.  There  is  a  youthful  simplicity 
in  the  whole  figure,  which  one  sees  well  will  grow 
into  manly  honor  and  dignity ;  and  the  countenance 
and  eyes  are  all  a-glow  with  a  true  boy's  enthusiasm, 
which  is  to  ripen  naturally  with  age  into  prophetic 
inspiration.  It  was  but  a  few  moments  that  I 
looked  upon  this  picture ;  but  I  shall  see  it  all  my 
life-time." 

The  life-story  has  been  told  —  an  uneventful  story, 
and  most  inadequately  told.  Yet  it  is  the  best  that 
can  be  gathered  out   of  the  obscurity  that   always 


Ixxiv  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

hangs  over  the  deep  things  of  the  human  spirit. 
Such  a  life  as  that  of  William  James  Potter  yields 
no  material  for  the  romancer  or  the  dramatist,  and 
leaves  its  abiding  record  chiefly  in  the  lives  of 
others,  lifted  up  to  higher  planes  of  thought  and 
feeling  and  silently  influenced  to  aim  more  steadily 
at  the  "beauty  of  holiness."  Strength  and  vigor  of 
moral  character,  loveliness  of  spirit,  saintliness  of 
life, —  undemonstrative  yet  tireless  enthusiasm  in 
the  cause  of  soul-freedom  and  soul-fidelity,  un- 
daunted pursuit  of  pure  truth  in  the  face  of  myriad 
influences  in  society  that  tend  to  tarnish  its  purity 
and  subordinate  it  to  meaner  ends,  unbounded  faith 
in  the  immanent  and  ever-active  presence  of  the 
Divine  in  the  human, —  in  a  word,  lifelong  self-conse- 
cration to  truth,  righteousness,  and  love  :  these  were 
the  impressions  of  the  man  that  were  left  on  all  who 
came  within  reach  of  his  shy  yet  potent  influence. 
To  the  few  who  were  admitted  into  the  sacred 
places  of  his  companionship,  veneration  and  affec- 
tion contended  for  the  mastery.  Yet  nothing  could 
be  less  mystical  or  unreal  than  his  participation  in 
the  commonest  affairs  of  life.  Greater  than  his 
purely  speculative  capacity  was  his  rare  soundness 
of  judgment  in  all  practical  matters,  in  which  he 
made  fewer  mistakes  than  almost  any  one  that  could 
be  named.  It  was  this  quality  that  made  his  opin- 
ion weigh  so  much  in  his  own  city,  even  among 
hard-headed  business  men ;  they  saw  that  he  was 
wise  in  the  things  of  the  world,  and  this  gave  them 
an  instinctive  confidence  that  he  was  wise  in  things 
of  a  higher  order.     In  times  of  trouble,  when  ordi- 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  IxXV 

nary  ambitions  lose  their  hold  even  on  the  worldliest 
minds,  a  soothing  and  uplifting  influence  emanated 
from  his  words  and  manner,  nay,  even  from  his  mere 
presence  and  aspect,  which  attached  to  him  those 
who  could  by  no  means  fathom  the  depths  of  his 
spirit.  Little  as  he  performed  the  ordinary  ofifices 
of  the  conventional  "pastor,"  he  yet  ministered  to 
his  people  in  a  way  that  held  them  to  him  with 
"hooks  of  steel,"  and  rendered  him  their  helper, 
comforter,  and  friend.  How  sweet  and  gracious  and 
consoling  were  his  sympathies  with  their  sorrows, 
they  knew,  if  strangers  knew  not ;  and  the  reluc- 
tance with  which  the  long  pastorate  was  at  last  ended 
tells  its  own  story  in  these  days  of  swift  and  fre- 
quent change.  Perhaps  the  secret  of  his  power  over 
their  hearts  is  let  out,  in  part,  in  a  letter  of  his  which 
may  fitly  close  this  sketch  of  his  life,  and  show  the 
beauty  of  its  sunset, 

41  Mt.  Vernon  Street, 
Boston,  December  9,  1893. 

My  dear  Friend, —  Shortly  after  you  left  me 
to-day,  your  letter  was  handed  in.  Though  con- 
strained to  silence,  we  understand  each  other.  Our 
hearts  are  linked  together,  in  this  experience  of  a 
common  pain,  by  the  chain  of  a  wordless  sympathy. 
Yet  I  believe  I  can  assure  you  that  it  is  a  part  of 
"the  All-Love"  in  the  nature  of  things  to  soften 
gradually  and  tenderly  the  first  sharp  pangs  of  such 
pain,  and  that,  too,  without  benumbing  our  sensibil- 
ities to  the  irreparable  loss  we  have  sustained. 
With    the    glorious    memory   of    my   wife   shining 


IxXVi  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

through  the  fourteen  years  since  she  left  me,  I  find 
in  the  ties  of  work  and  affection  that  remain  so 
much  of  satisfaction  and  joy,  that  I  cannot  now 
quite  respond  to  your  expression  that  "  the  happiest 
day  that  awaits  either  of  us  on  this  earth  will  be 
the  day  when  we  leave  it  forever."  Yet  I  can 
perfectly  understand  how  you,  in  these  desolate 
days  of  a  bereavement  so  fresh  and  poignant,  should 
feel  so.  But,  dear  friend,  may  you  live  to  understand 
also  my  present  feeling,  that  life,  with  all  the  be- 
reavements behind  it,  may  still  have  a  joy  and 
beauty  which  we  shall  not  be  eager  to  leave  .... 

Yours  most  sincerely, 

Wm.  J.  Potter. 


BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH  Ixxvii 


IN    THE    GRAY   STONE    CHURCH. 

December  26,  1893. 

Forth  went  from  his  dear  homestead's  doors 

The  Reaper-Youth  at  morn, 
To  toil  as  toiled  his  ancestors, 

And  reap  his  field  of  corn. 
All  day  he  labored  in  the  sun 

And  bore  the  heats  of  noon, 
Nor  once  forgot  the  task  begun, 

Nor  laid  his  sickle  down. 

Back  to  this  dearer  home  returns 

The  Reaper-Man  at  night, 
And  love,  exulting  while  it  mourns, 

Bends  reverent  at  the  sight. 
He  comes,  alas,  to  reap  no  more. 

But  with  a  wealth  of  sheaves, 
Where  once  the  field  he  labored  o'er, 

He  now  his  harvest  leaves  : 

His  harvest,  not  of  yellow  corn 

Such  as  his  fathers  prized. 
But  souls  to  nobler  issues  born. 

To  holier  lives  baptized, — 
Souls  stirred  to  seek  the  lofty  ends 

Of  freedom,  wisdom,  love. 
And  make  their  own  the  truth  that  blends 

The  Serpent  and  the  Dove. 

O  prophet-preacher,  wise  and  just, 

Pure,  gentle,  tender,  free  ! 
Marble  is  dust  and  bronze  is  rust ; 

We  build  not  these  to  thee. 
Yet  one  memorial  shall  remain. 

Long  as  the  seasons  roll : 
Thy  monument  of  growing  grain, 

Thy  harvest  of  the  soul ! 

F.  E.  A. 


LIST  OF  PUBLICATIONS. 


[Note. —  In  the  following  list  no  attempt  has  been  made  to  enum- 
erate Mr.  Potter's  many  articles  in  the  Index,  to  which  he  was  a 
constant  contributor,  and  of  which  he  was  for  six  years  (1880-86) 
the  editor.  He  also  edited  for  a  number  of  years  the  annual 
reports  of  the  P>ee  Religious  Association.  Many  of  his  sermons 
were  printed  entire  in  the  New  Bedford  daily  papers  from  his  manu- 
script; but  it  has  not  been  found  expedient  to  include  them  here.] 

Discourse  [to  the  Memory  of  Mrs.  Sarah  R.  Ar- 
nold, preached  Sunday,  May  13th,  i860.  New  Bedford, 
i860.]     8vo.     pp.  18. 

[The  same.]     8vo.     pp.  17. 

The  Inner  Light  and  Culture.  An  address  de- 
livered before  the  Alumni  Association  of  Friends'  New 
England  Yearly  Meeting  School,  at  their  third  annual 
meeting  at  Newport,  1861.  New  Bedford,  1861.  8vo. 
pp.  16. 

A  Pulpit  View  of  the  Business  Interests  of  our 
City.  [Discourses  preached  Jan.  iS  and  25,  1863, 
New  Bedford,  1863.]     Broadsides. 

The  Voice  of  the  Draft.  [New  Bedford,  1863.] 
Broadside. 

This  was  reprinted  in  the  Army  and  Navy  Official  Gazette,  Aug. 
II,  1863.     (Vol.  I.,  pp.  87-89.) 


IXXX  LIST    OF    PUBLICATIONS 

The  National  Tragedy,  Four  sermons  delivered 
before  the  First  Congregational  Society,  New  Bedford, 
on  the  life  and  death  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  New  Bed- 
ford, 1S65.     8vo.     pp.  67. 

A  Tribute  to  the  Memory  of  James  Arnold,  [New 
Bedford,  1868.]     8vo.     pp.  iv,  19. 

Reason  and  Revelation.  A  discourse.  New  Bed- 
ford, 1868.      1 6 mo.     pp.  22. 

The  Doctrine  of  Pre-existence  and  the  Fourth 
Gospel.  Reprinted  from  the  Radical.  Boston,  1868. 
8vo.     pp.  13. 

Ten  Years'  Ministry.  A  sermon  preached  to  the 
First  Congregational  Society,  New  Bedford,  Jan.  2,  1870. 
[New  Bedford,  1870.]     8vo.     pp.  13. 

What  is  Christianity,  and  What  is  it  to  be  a 
Christian  ?  A  discourse  before  the  First  Conoresfa- 
tional  Society,  New  Bedford,  Dec.  28,  1873.  [Reprinted 
from  the ///^/i?.v.]     Boston,  1874.      i6mo.     pp.21. 

A  Discourse  on  Charles  Sumner,  delivered  at  the 
First  Congregational  Church,  New  Bedford,  March  22, 
1874.     [New  Bedford,  1S74.]     8vo.     pp.  6. 

Lessons  from  the  Elections  for  the  Victors  and 
THE  Vanquished.  A  discourse  delivered  before  the 
First  Congregational  Church,  New  Bedford,  Nov.  9th, 
1874.     New  Bedford,   1874.     8vo.     pp.   19. 

Some  Aspects  of  Unitarianism  in  its  Past  and 
Present  History.  Two  discourses  delivered  before 
the  First  Congregational  Society,  New  Bedford,  Nov. 
22d  and  29th,  1874.     New  Bedford,  1874.     8vo.    pp.  38. 


LIST    OF    PUBLICATIONS  Ixxxi 

Christianity  and  its  Definition.  In  "  Freedom 
and  Fellowship  in  Religion."  A  collection  of  essays 
and  addresses  edited  by  a  committee  of  the  Free  Relig- 
ious Association.     Boston,  1875.     pp.  178-221. 

In  Memory  of  Mrs.  Caroline    Morgan,  who    died 

April  20,  1883.     [New  Bedford,  18S3.]      i6mo.     pp.  18. 

Contains  address  at  the  funeral  service  and  "  The  Higher  Life,' 
a  discourse  preached  April  29,  1883. 

William  H.  Allen.  [New  Bedford,  1883.]  i6mo. 
pp.  [20.] 

Contains  the  address  made  and  selections  read  at  the  funeral, 
and  a  portrait  and  brief  life  of  Mr.  Allen.  Printed  on  one  side  of 
the  leaf  only. 

Twenty-five  Sermons  of  Twenty-five  Years. 
Boston,   1885.     8vo.     pp.   [x]  417.     Portrait. 

The    Faiths    of    Evolution.      (Unity    Short   Tracts, 

No.  6.)     [Chicago,  1885  .?]      i6mo.     pp.  8. 

An  extract  from  the  sermon  preached  on  his  twenty-fifth  anni- 
versary. 

A  Completed  Life.  A  discourse  preached  in  the 
Unitarian  church.  New  Bedford,  Mass.,  Oct.  24,  1886, 
as  a  tribute  to  the  character  of  Joseph  C.  Delano. 
[New  Bedford,  1886.]     8vo.     pp.  20. 

The  First  Congregational  Society  in  New  Bed- 
ford, Mass.  Its  history  as  illustrative  of  ecclesiastical 
evolution.     New  Bedford,    1889.     8vo.     pp.    151. 

Services  at  the  ordination  of  Paul  R.  Frothingham  as 

associate  pastor  of  the  First  Congregational  Society  in 

New    Bedford,    Mass.,    Oct.    9,    1889.       [New    Bedford, 

1890.]     8vo.     pp.  31. 

Contains  sermon,  "  Liberty,  but  Religion  also."  By  William  J. 
Potter,  senior  pastor,     pp.  7-30. 


Ixxxii  LIST    OF    PUBLICATIONS 

A  Noble  Motto  for  the  Conduct  of  Life.  A 
memorial  discourse  [on  Dr.  G.  Felix  Matthes],  delivered 
in  the  First  Congregational  (Unitarian)  Church,  New 
Bedford,  Oct.  20,  1889.  New  Bedford,  1890.  i6mo. 
pp.  18. 

The  Late  Lesson  from  our  County  Court  House  : 
A  Pulpit  Trial  of  the  Egg  Island  Crime.  A  dis- 
course given  in  the  First  Congregational  (Unitarian) 
Church  in  New  Bedford,  Oct.  25,  1891.  [New  Bedford, 
189 1.]     8vo.     pp.  8. 

The  Free  Religious  Association  :  Its  Twenty-five 
Years  and  their  Meaning.  An  address  for  the 
twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  the  Association,  at  Tremont 
Temple,  Boston,  May  27th,  1892.  Preceded  by  a  brief 
sketch  of  the  annual  convention.     [Boston,  1892.]     8vo. 

PP-  31- 

Closing    Sermon   of   William    J.    Potter,    Dec.    25th, 

1892.  Opening  Sermon  of  Paul  Revere  Frothingham, 
Jan.  ist,  1893.  First  Congregational  Society,  New  Bed- 
ford, Mass.     [New  Bedford,   1893.]     8vo.     pp.  44. 

Mr.  Potter's  sermon,  "  Thirty-three  years :  Their  End  a  Begin- 
ning."    pp.  9-26. 

Sunshine  of  the  Soul,   William  J.  Potter,  Dec.  17, 

1893.  In  the  Shadow,  Paul  Revere  Frothingham, 
Dec.  24,  1893.     [New  Bedford,   1894.]     8vo.     pp.  36. 

Mr.  Potter's  sermon,  the  last  he  wrote,  pp.  3-20. 


LIST    OF    PUBLICATIONS  Ixxxiii 


ARTICLES   IN   THE   RADICAL. 

Ideas  and  Inspirations.  October,  1866.  Vol.  II. 
PP-  65-75- 

Who  is  our  Saviour?  February,  1867.  Vol.  IL 
PP-  347-352. 

The  Resurrection  of  Jesus.  May,  1867.  Vol.  II. 
PP- 558-571- 

The  Doctrine  of  Pre-existence  and  the  Fourth 
Gospel.     April,  1868.     Vol.  III.     pp.  513-525. 

The  Doctrine  of  Divine  Incarnation.  June,  1868. 
Vol.  III.     pp.  673-688. 

Christianity  and  its  Definition.  February,  1870. 
Vol.  VII.     pp.  81-108. 

The  Doctrine  of  Immortality  in  the  Light  of 
Science.     June,  1871.     Vol.  VIII.     pp.  314-336. 

The  New  Protestantism  :  Its  Relation  to  the 
Old.  (Discourse  before  the  Alumni  of  the  Divinity 
School  of  Harvard  University,  June  27,  187 1.)  Sep- 
tember, 187 1.     Vol.  IX.     pp.  105-128. 

ARTICLE   IN   THE   RADICAL    REVIEW. 

The  Two  Traditions,  Ecclesiastical  and  Scien- 
tific.    May,  1877.     Vol.  I.     pp.  1-24. 


RELIGIOUS     SENTIMENT    IN   THE    LIGHT 

OF    SCIENCE. 

Probably  there  is  no  utterance  of  Hebrew  piety 
which  has  come  down  to  us  that  would  be  so  gen- 
erally accepted  as  the  very  quintessence,  in  expres- 
sion, of  the  religious  sentiment  in  one  of  its  pur- 
est and  most  poetical  forms  as  the  Twenty-third 
Psalm,  beginning,  "The  Lord  is  my  shepherd." 
In  the  midst  of  perplexities,  trials,  sorrows,  it 
breathes  the  innermost  spirit  of  trust,  confidence, 
serenity,  hope,  and  peace.  When  we  want  words 
of  comfort  and  calmness,  we  inevitably  turn  to 
it.  Its  sentences  abide  easily  in  the  memory  with 
a  soothing  charm.  When  read  in  the  chamber  of 
sickness,  they  have  power  to  hush  the  moanings  of 
pain.  In  the  house  of  death  they  have  power  to 
subdue  into  reverent  stillness,  at  least  for  the 
moment,  the  complainings  of  bereaved  hearts. 
Over  the  grave  they  arch  in  a  rainbow  of  promise. 
To  many  a  man  and  oftener  to  woman,  struggling 
to  the  verge  of  despair  against  life's  actual  hard- 
ships and  bitterness,  they  have  come  with  a 
strengthening  of  purpose,  of  courage,  and  of  hope. 
It  would  be  difficult,  indeed,  to  find  anywhere  else, 
in  so  small  a  compass,  throughout  the  whole  range 
of  religious  literature,  an   utterance  so  completely 


2  RELIGIOUS    SENTIMENT 

covering  all  the  hard  exigencies  of  human  life,  and 
yet  so  charged  with  a  confident  belief  in  a  ruling 
and  overruling  Providence  for  human  personal 
good.  We  shall  find  the  ethical  side  of  religion 
more  fully  expressed  elsewhere,  as  in  the  Beati- 
tudes of  the  New  Testament  and  in  certain  utter- 
ances of  other  religions, —  as  in  Marcus  Aurelius 
and  Seneca  and  in  Buddhism  and  the  writings  of 
Confucius  and  Mencius.  We  may  find  heroic 
appeals  to  religious  action  in  some  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets  and  in  Brahmanism  which  are  of  a  very 
high  order  of  spiritual  nobility,  yet  they  strike  a 
different  key.  But  as  a  poetical  expression  of  the 
religious  sentiment /S'^r  j^,  in  all  its  fulness,  rang- 
ing through  the  whole  gamut  of  spiritual  experi- 
ence in  the  face  of  life's  problems  of  good  and  evil, 
I  think  that  the  Twenty-third  Psalm  must  stand 
as  the  classical  masterpiece. 

To  the  investigating  rational  understanding  of 
the  present  age,  however,  clothed  with  scientific 
authority,  there  is  no  Holy  of  holies  too  sacred  to 
enter.  There  is  no  veiled  Shechinah  from  which 
modern  reason  dares  not  to  lift  the  curtain;  no  tra- 
ditional form  of  the  religious  sentiment,  however 
venerable  for  its  age  or  closely  intertwined  with 
the  tendrils  of  the  heart's  holiest  memories,  which 
this  same  reason  does  not  claim  the  right  to  ap- 
proach and  analyze.  And  this  right  must  be  freely 
granted.  A  human  belief  or  a  human  institution, 
even  on  the  theory  that  they  were  directly  created 
by  Almighty   Power,  cannot   in  themselves   be  re- 


IN    THE    LIGHT    OF    SCIENCE  3 

garded  as  more  sacred  than  the  plant  or  the  mineral, 
which  we  unreservedly  give  up  to  science;  for,  on 
the  same  theory,  the  plant  and  the  mineral  were 
directly  created  by  the  Almighty  Power.  If  the 
latter  be  a  fit  subject  for  scientific  investigation, 
why  not,  then,  the  former?  For  one,  I  can  have 
no  sympathy  with  those  persons  who  appear  to  be 
afraid  lest  modern  rationalism  is  going  to  discover 
some  disagreeable  truth  about  the  religious  beliefs 
and  usages  they  have  been  wont  to  hold.  If  it  be 
truth,  they  should  want  to  know  it ;  for  nothing 
can  be  more  divine,  more  absolutely  real,  than 
that.  It  is  on  the  presumption  that  these  beliefs 
and  usages  have  been  supernaturally  revealed  as 
true  that  they  have  been  adhered  to.  If  not  true, 
they  are  not  what  we  have  taken  them  for;  and,  if 
this  be  clearly  shown  by  rational  and  judicial  in- 
quiry, we  ought  to  be  ready  to  discard  them  as 
errors,  and  not  mourn  for  them  as  lost  truths. 
And  we  should  be  thus  ready,  were  it  not  that  we 
often  grow  to  love  our  own  accustomed  opinions 
more  than  we  love  the  truth.  When,  therefore, 
this  modern  spirit  of  rational  inquiry  approaches 
the  holiest  shrines  of  our  most  cherished  senti- 
ments; when  it  asks,  as  it  now  does,  for  the  reason 
of  this  or  that  usage  in  familiar  forms  of  worship; 
when  it  studies,  as  it  would  other  books,  the  most 
revered  oracles  of  Scripture;  when  it  takes  even 
such  an  exquisite  classic  of  religious  literature  as 
the  Twenty-third  Psalm,  and,  becoming  more  spe- 
cial and  personal  in  its  inquisitions,  asks  us  here, 


4  RELIGIOUS    SENTIMENT 

for  instance,  who  may  be  believers  in  the  scientific 
doctrines  of  evolution  and  a  natural  divine  imma- 
nence, and  have  parted  company  with  the  Hebrew 
conception  of  Jehovah,  how  we  can  harmonize  with 
such  modern  beliefs  our  usage  or  any  usage  of  the 
old  Hebrew  words,  or  how  turn  for  truth  or  for 
comfort  to  the  lines  which  picture  the  Eternal 
Power  as  the  tender  shepherd  of  mankind,  —  when 
inquiries  like  these  press  us,  we  ought  not  to  evade 
nor  blink  them  as  if  fearing  some  dire  result,  but 
be  ready  to  give  a  reason  for  the  faith  or,  if  it  be 
that,  for  the  non-faith  which  may  be  in  us.  There 
is  no  result  in  religious  things  more  dire  than  that 
intellectual  tampering  with  truth  which  becomes 
insincerity  in  utterance  and  fraud   in  action. 

Taking,  then,  such  an  utterance  as  the  Twenty- 
third  Psalm  as  one  of  the  most  noted  high-water 
marks  in  the  ancient  expression  of  religious  senti- 
ment, what  shall  we  say  for  it  in  the  light  of  those 
rational  views  of  religion  which  the  new  science  of 
this  century  has  been  shaping?  On  the  answer  to 
this  question  will  depend,  perhaps,  certain  mo- 
mentous issues,  —  as  whether  these  new  science- 
shaped  views  of  religion  will  be  merely  critical, 
or  positively  and  creatively  religious.  Will  they 
remain  on  the  plane  of  analytical  religious  philos- 
ophy merely,  or  will  they  be  capable  of  nourish- 
ing the  impulse  to  worship?  I  do  not  mean  neces- 
sarily worship  at  fixed  places  and  times,  but  that 
worship  which  is  in  spirit  and  truth  and  resolute 
noble  purpose;  and,  what  is  more,  will  these  new 


IN    THE    LIGHT    OF    SCIENCE  5 

scientific  views  of  religion  give  impulse  to  that 
consecrated  and  persistent  action  which  will  result 
in  the  continued  moral  progress  and  spiritual iza- 
tion  of  mankind?  On  these  several  and  searching 
questions  the  discourses  on  the  specific  portions 
of  the  Psalm  may  throw  some  helpful  light.  But, 
primarily,  the  theme  has  such  a  large  unfolding 
into  the  whole  question  of  the  relation  of  science 
to  sentiment,  and  of  sentiment  as  an  essential 
factor  of  religion,  that  a  prior  consideration  of 
these   points   will   be  helpful. 

And,  first  of  all,  it  must  of  course  be  borne  in 
mind  that  we  are  here  using  the  word  "sentiment  " 
in  the  sense  given  by  the  dictionaries  as  its  first 
and  most  usual  meaning;  namely,  as  that  function 
of  the  human  mind  which  manifests  itself  in  men- 
tal feeling,  emotion,  or  inward  sensitiveness  to 
impressions  from  certain  ideas  or  from  outward 
things,  as  distinguished  from  the  ideas  themselves 
and  from  the  faculty  of  mental  perception  and 
judgment.  The  term  "sentiment,"  especially  in 
the  plural  form,  is  sometimes  used  as  a  synonyme 
for  "opinions,"  or  mental  views.  But  this  is  not 
a  meaning  with  which  we  are  now  dealing. 

A  second  point  to  be  kept  clearly  in  mind  is 
that,  when  we  are  considering  the  present  applica- 
bility of  any  past  form  of  religious  expression, 
whether  it  be  an  institution  or  usage,  a  work  of 
art  or  a  piece  of  literature,  we  must  make  a 
broad  distinction  between  the  expression  of  senti- 
ment   and    the   expression   of  beliefs   or  opinions. 


6  RELIGIOUS    SENTIMENT 

On  this  distinction  the  whole  question  of  adapta- 
tion to  present  use  may  depend  for  decision.  For 
instance,  the  Hebrew-Christian  Bible  is  a  book 
of  the  most  varied  contents  and  texture.  Large 
portions  of  it  purport  to  be  narratives  of  events, 
historical,  biographical,  cosmological.  Other  por- 
tions consist  largely  of  dogmas,  opinions,  beliefs, 
and  ecclesiastical  regulations.  These  dogmas, 
opinions,  beliefs,  and  regulations  have  to  a  large 
extent  been  passed  by,  outgrown.  They  belonged 
to  their  time,  but  have  little  use  at  the  present 
time  except  for  material  toward  a  history  of  human 
beliefs  and  institutions.  And,  in  every  case,  the 
question  of  their  truth  or  error  is  to  be  submitted 
to  the  more  enlightened  reason  of  modern  times. 
Of  the  narrative  portions  a  large  part  has  been 
proved  to  be  unhistorical,  legendary,  mythical; 
and  these  parts  can  have  no  present  use  for  ethical 
or  spiritual  profit,  except  that  the  legend  is  often 
morally  suggestive.  But,  again,  large  portions  of 
the  Bible  consist  of  religious  poetry,  prophetic 
preachings,  ethical  and  spiritual  precepts,  the 
utterances  of  sage  and  seer.  In  these  portions 
the  religious  or  moral  sentiment  is  spoken  from 
and  spoken  to.  And  just  in  proportion  to  the 
height  and  purity  of  the  poetic  insight  and  the 
spiritual  vision  do  these  parts  keep  a  permanent 
religious  value  and  take  their  places  as  religious 
classics  for  the  spiritual  edification  of  mankind. 
Even  in  these  utterances,  beliefs  of  the  time,  no 
longer  accepted  by  rational  judgment,  may  mingle; 


IN    THE    LIGHT    OF    SCIENCE  / 

but  they  occur  incidentally  only,  making  a  part  of 
the  setting  of  the  gem,  but  not  the  gem  itself: 
they  are  not  the  chief  thing  conveyed  to  our  minds 
or  touching  our  hearts.  And  herein  we  may  find 
the  proper  rule  for  discrimination.  Where  the 
religious  sentiment  (including  the  ethical)  so  pre- 
dominates over  beliefs  and  opinions  that  it  is  not 
the  latter  which  chiefly  impress  us,  but  the  impress 
comes  from  the  sentiment  itself,  and  where  that 
sentiment  brings  to  us  high  solace  or  ennobling 
inspiration,  there  we  have  a  Scriptural  utterance, 
whether  from  the  Hebrew-Christian  Bible  or  any 
other  religious  literature,  which  carries  its  own 
proof  of  its  continued  spiritual  value.  Applying 
this  rule  to  the  Twenty-third  Psalm,  in  my  opin- 
ion it  would  abundantly  meet  the  test.  Beliefs 
may  change,  dogmas  be  discarded ;  but  in  the  pur- 
est expressions  of  the  religious  sentiment  there  is 
a  reality  of  truth  which  never  becomes  obsolete. 

The  correctness  of  this  position  with  regard  to 
the  point  under  discussion  is  confirmed  by  noting 
that  a  similar  relation  exists  between  sentiment 
and  doctrine,  or  belief,  in  other  matters  where  sen- 
timent is  the  chief  ground  of  appeal.  We  may 
listen  with  edification  and  delight  to  a  fine  execu- 
tion of  the  classical  oratorios,  though  we  may  not 
accept  the  theology  that  inspired  them  and  the 
words  of  which  may  still  go  with  them.  For 
music  is  an  art  which  finds  and  addresses  a  senti- 
ment which  is  underneath  all  words;  and,  when  the 
art  rises  high  enough,  it  may  express  that  sentiment 


8  RELIGIOUS    SENTIMENT 

with  such  magical  enchantment  as  to  cause  for  the 
time  being  forgetfulness  of  the  false  words  it  uses. 
So  Dante's  great  poems  continue  to  find  charmed 
readers,  who  discard  the  theological  conceptions 
which  his  lofty  muse  used  as  the  framework  of  her 
subtle  art.  And  this  is  true  of  poetry  in  general. 
It  is  not  necessary  that  the  thought  of  a  poem 
should  be  strictly  modern  to  keep  it  alive,  if  only 
the  thought  be  subordinated  to  sentiments  or  to 
certain  fundamental  principles  of  conduct  which 
have  common  and  perpetual  vitality  in  human  ex- 
perience, and  these  sentiments  and  principles  are 
touched  by  the  wand  of  genuine  poetic  genius. 
Even  the  quaint  plantation  songs  of  the  Southern 
negroes,  with  but  a  fig-leaf  of  thought  and  making 
use  of  the  crudest  imagery,  have  often  power  to 
draw  our  tears  because  of  the  pathos  of  sentiment 
with  which  they  are  charged.  Yet,  before  leaving 
this  point,  it  ought  to  be  added  that,  when  we  have 
not  only  the  richness  of  sentiment  and  the  fine 
artistic  genius,  but,  combined  with  them  in  any 
literary  or  musical  composition,  a  range  of  ideas 
which  are  acceptable  to  our  intellects,  then  there 
is  additional  gratification,  since  more  of  our  men- 
tal faculties  are  addressed.  Emerson  and  Brown- 
ing have  been  poets  who  have  particularly  given  to 
their  admirers  this  third  pleasure:  they  have  been 
poets  of  to-day's  thought.  And  not  infrequently 
it  is  their  thought  which  carries  along  a  rough  or 
halting  verse.  Still,  it  is  not  the  thought  which 
will  decide  the  question  of  their  permanence  in  the 


IN    THE    LIGHT    OF    SCIENCE  9 

galaxy  of  the  world's  poets.  Here  their  triumph 
will  rest  chiefly  on  the  measure  in  which  they  have 
expressed  imperishable  sentiments  by  a  masterful 
poetic  genius. 

But  we  are  told  to-day,  and  sometimes  by  per- 
sons who  appear  to  represent  a  considerable  part  of 
the  scientific  thinking  of  the  day,  that  sentiment 
itself  is  out  of  date  and  is  to  be  relesrated  to  the 
background  of  modern  activities.  So  let  me  say 
a  few  words  on  this  modern  attempt  to  cast  preju- 
dice on  sentiment  in  general.  Sentiment  is  often 
derided  as  sentimentalism,  the  design  being  to  cast 
back  upon  the  parent-word  the  discredit  that  at- 
taches to  its  verbal  offspring.  But  the  fact  that 
a  new  word  was  coined  to  express  that  vicious  ex- 
treme to  which  sentiment  may  run  when  unbal- 
anced by  other  mental  qualities  proves  rather  the 
soundness  of  the  original  word  and  of  that  function 
of  human  nature  for  which  it  stands.  We  want  to 
repress,  of  course,  sentimentalism,  and  we  want  so 
to  check  and  balance  sentiment  that  it  shall  not 
fall  into  sentimentalism;  but  do  we  want  to  re- 
press the  faculty  or  function  of  sentiment  itself? 
The  faculty  of  reason  does  not  always  use  sound 
logic,  and  sometimes  falls  into  woful  mistakes. 
Shall  we  therefore  suppress  it?  Even  conscience 
has  gone  astray,  and  committed  terrible  crimes. 
Shall  we  therefore  discard  it  in  the  guidance  of 
life?  Nature  has  created  in  the  human  mind  a 
variety  of  faculties,  each  fitted  for  a  special  func- 
tion or  service;  and    it    seems   probable    that    the 


lO  RELIGIOUS    SENTIMENT 

great  intent  of  nature  concerning  man,  and  of  the 
Power  behind  nature,  will  be  best  fulfilled  by  a 
well-balanced  development  and  use  of  all  these  fac- 
ulties. Hitherto,  the  history  of  the  world,  from 
the  very  beginnings  of  history,  proves  that  senti- 
ment has  played  a  most  important  part  in  the  acts 
of  nations  and  men.  It  has  been  the  mainspring 
of  some  of  the  mightiest  institutions  and  move- 
ments. Even  we  of  this  country  are  but  a  little 
more  than  thirty  years  away  from  one  of  the  most 
magnificent  demonstrations  of  sentiment  on  a  con- 
tinental scale  that  the  world  has  ever  seen, —  the 
popular,  Pentecostal  uprising  of  the  North  against 
the  slaveholders'  rebellion,  when  the  national  flag 
was  shot  down.  In  the  white  heat  of  patriotic  en- 
thusiasm the  iron  barriers  between  churches  and 
between  political  parties  were  melted  away,  and 
the  North  leaped  as  one  man  against  that  final  out- 
rage of  the  slave  power.  Sentiment  needs  the  vig- 
orous regulation,  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the  left, 
which  is  offered  by  reason  and  the  lessons  of  expe- 
rience; but  it  is  itself  the  central  impulse  in  a 
large  domain  of  human  action.  It  is  the  founder 
of  the  family  and  the  home.  It  is  the  chief  sus- 
tainer  of  moral  law.  It  has  been  a  founder  and 
supporter  of  states  as  well  as  religions. 

When,  therefore,  I  hear  of  schemes  for  the  sup- 
pression of  sentiment  in  human  life,  I  think  that  a 
task  is  undertaken  a  great  deal  larger  than  is 
dreamed  of, —  nothing  less,  in  fact,  than  a  revolu- 
tion against  human   nature.      I  know  what  mighty 


IN    THE    LIGHT    OF    SCIENCE  II 

power  is  possessed  by  moral  agitators  and  re- 
formers. They  do  sometimes  revolutionize  society 
and  its  institutions.  But  such  reformers  have  a 
powerful  sentiment  in  their  philanthropy  to  spur 
them  on.  These  new  apostles  to  society,  whose 
cry  is,  "Death  to  Sentiment,"  cut  the  very  nerve 
of  reform  effort  in  the  proclamation  of  their  prin- 
ciple. They  are  not  re-formers,  but  mal-formers. 
Their  act,  if  they  could  accomplish  it,  would  be  a 
species  of  self-mutilation.  Nature,  therefore,  may 
be  trusted,  by  the  pressure  of  all  her  vital  and  pro- 
gressive forces,  to  resist  it  as  a  crime. 

I  doubt  not  that  a  scientific  study  of  the  great 
social  problems  —  the  problems  of  poverty,  vice, 
and  criminal  degradation  —  will  render  most  valu- 
able aid  toward  their  solution.  I  doubt  not  that  in 
some  respects  a  genuine  social  science  is  going 
to  transform  all  our  old  methods,  particularly  in 
making  the  chief  aim  to  be  prevention  of  misery, 
instead  of  letting  the  misery  come  and  then  send- 
ing charity  —  necessarily  then  for  very  pity's  sake 
—  to  misery's  relief.  But,  if  any  think  that  these 
new  scientific  methods  are  to  vacate  the  offices  of 
the  sentiment  of  benevolence  in  the  solution  of 
these  grave  problems,  they  most  profoundly  err. 
The  plea  of  those  critics  to  whom  I  have  here  re- 
ferred is,  Let  not  sentiment  interfere  to  prop  up 
the  feeble-bodied  and  the  feeble-minded  against 
the  operation  of  nature's  stern  law  of  struggle, 
with  survival  of  the  fittest.  But  by  the  natural 
law  of  evolution   itself   civilization  and  humanity 


12  RELIGIOUS    SENTIMENT 

have  advanced  far  beyond  this  sheer  animal  stage 
of  physical  struggle  for  physical  existence.  The 
ethical  and  humane  sympathies  which  do  interfere 
with  that  old  law  of  physical  struggle  and  survival 
are  among  the  most  eminent  signs  of  the  high  alti- 
tude to  which  human  life  has  risen  above  savage 
and  brute  conditions  of  existence.  On  the  human 
plane  the  survival  of  the  fittest  is  thus  made  to 
mean  the  survival  of  the  best.  In  fact,  the  new 
scientific  methods  of  philanthropy  will  require 
larger  and  more  constant  services  from  personal 
sympathy  and  benevolent  devotion  than  the  old; 
and  the  best  benefit  of  all  methods  of  dealins:  with 
vice  and  misery  must  always  come,  not  from  the 
method  itself,  but  from  the  personal  sentiment  of 
genuine  neighborly  love  and  helpfulness  which  the 
men  and  women  who  wield  the  method  are  able  to 
put  into  it.  As  to  that  fastidious  frowning  on  sen- 
timent and  on  every  kind  of  enthusiasm  which  ap- 
pears in  certain  quarters  of  the  fashionable  world, 
it  deserves  scarcely  any  further  criticism  than  that 
of  silent  contempt.  With  the  suppression  of  senti- 
ment, the  faculty  of  thought  in  these  persons  seems 
also  to  have  vanished,  and  nothing  has  power 
henceforth  to  disturb  the  decorous  inanities  of 
their  days.  Their  characters  are  too  feeble  for 
perpetuation,  and  we  need  have  no  concern  lest 
they  shall  revolutionize  human  nature.  Nor  need 
we  more  fear  those  bolder  intellects  who  venture 
here  and  there  to  assert  that  the  marriage  institu- 
tion should  be  taken  from  its  ancient  foundation  in 


IN    THE    LIGHT    OF    SCIENCE  I3 

the  sentiment  of  love,  and  that  the  state  should 
select  partners  in  marriage  according  to  scientific 
principles  of  adaptation,  and  that  the  state,  too, 
should  take  the  children  under  its  tutelage  and  not 
leave  them  to  be  spoiled  by  parental  fondness. 
This  theory  is  not  wholly  new  to  human  history. 
Ancient  Sparta  tried  it  to  a  very  considerable  ex- 
tent in  both  its  branches.  The  theory  produced 
a  nation  of  soldiers.  But  they  and  Sparta  went 
down  with  the  rest  of  Greece,  when  that  country  of 
ancient  genius  vanished  from  history. 

We  see,  therefore,  that  the  great  sentiments  in 
general,  which  have  moved  human  nature  through 
all  its  past  history,  are  likely  to  abide.  They  may 
be  cultivated,  improved,  but  not  uprooted;  for 
their  roots  are  vital  elements  of  human  nature 
itself. 

If  this  be  true  of  sentiment  in  general,  it  is  a 
fortiori  true  of  the  religious  sentiment.  Religion, 
as  I  am  accustomed  to  define  it, —  seeking  a  defi- 
nition which  shall  cover  all  its  specific  forms  and 
possible  phases, —  represents  man's  threefold  rela- 
tion, through  thought,  feeling,  and  deed,  to  the 
Universal  Power  and  Life.  Feeling,  or  senti- 
ment, is  one  of  the  three  essential  elements  of 
religion,  which  must  always  appear  when  religion 
has  its  full  symmetry  of  proportions  and  its  full 
measure  of  legitimate  power.  Sometimes  senti- 
ment has  held  too  exclusive  sway,  producing  a 
religion  of  emotional  ecstasy  with  the  crudest 
thought  and  very  slight  ethical  perception.      Un- 


14  RELIGIOUS    SENTIMENT 

balanced  by  rational  thought,  disconnected  from 
the  moral  sense  and  deed,  the  monstrosity  of  the 
dervishes'  dance  and  the  revival  convulsion  has 
been  called  religion.  Nevertheless,  without  senti- 
ment, religious  thought  may  tend  to  dry  dogmas, 
and  moral  deed  be  cold  and  colorless.  The  senti- 
ment is  that  which  imparts  the  life-giving,  fructi- 
fying, mellowing  atmosphere  to  religion.  And  it 
is  difficult  to  see  how  this  sentiment  should  not 
arise,  though  in  very  crude  form  perhaps,  as  soon 
as  the  first  mental  perception  of  relationship  to 
some  Power  conceived  to  be  supreme  had  dawned ; 
and  as  difficult,  nay,  more  difficult,  to  see  why  the 
sentiment  should  not  continue  as  a  necessary  ad- 
junct of  all  full-sided  religious  thought,  under 
whatever  degree  of  rational  enlightenment  and 
culture.  Just  look  at  the  actual  conditions  a 
moment.  Here  we  are,  in  organic,  vital,  present 
relationship  with  the  Eternal  Power  from  which  all 
things  have  proceeded.  That  Power  is  the  very 
breath  of  our  life.  Our  consciousness,  our  affec- 
tions, our  aspirations,  are  phases  of  its  existence. 
Our  sense  of  duty  and  right  is  the  behest  of  its 
august  presence.  Our  dispositions  to  benevolence 
and  generosity  are  the  very  channels  which  its  love 
has  made  in  our  being  at  our  welcoming  gesture. 
Yet  this  Power,  so  nigh  to  us,  so  living  in  us  — 
and  this  is  what  Science  says  —  is  that  same  Power 
which  has  existed  from  all  eternity,  creating  the 
worlds  and  all  that  is  in  them,  and  which  shapes 
the  perfect  crystal  of  the  snowflake,  clothes  itself 


IN    THE    LIGHT    OF    SCIENCE  I  5 

as  beauty  in  the  ripened  leaf  and  in  the  first  flower 
of  spring  and  in  myriads  of  forms,  large  and  small, 
all  around  us  on  earth,  and  studs  the  heavens  with 
gems  of  stars  and  planets.  Can  any  human  being 
actually  think  this  thought  about  the  Infinite  and 
Eternal  Power  without  some  uprising  of  inward 
sentiment?  without  some  emotion  both  of  awe  and 
of  obligation?  Even  Science  itself,  for  a  moment, 
must  hush  its  debates,  cease  its  researches,  and 
bow  in  reverence  before  the  grandeur  of  its  own 
conception. 

Nor  does  legitimate  Science  make  any  opposi- 
tion to  sentiment  either  in  religion  or  elsewhere. 
Sentiment  forms  a  part  of  the  phenomena  which 
make  the  field  of  its  researches.  It  is  a  more  diffi- 
cult field  than  that  which  is  offered  in  physical 
nature;  and  Science  does  not  claim  that  it  can 
bring  to  the  region  of  emotion  the  same  tests 
which  it  would  apply  in  the  chemical  laboratory  or 
in  botanic  analysis.  It  only  claims  that  the  scien- 
tific method  is  to  be  used,  and  not  the  dogmatic; 
that  is,  the  method  of  accurate  research  into  and 
observation  of  facts,  and  then  of  their  classifica- 
tion, and  the  discovery,  if  possible,  of  their  law  of 
relation.  This  method  is  now  applied  to  the  study 
of  history,  of  language,  and  literatures:  and  there 
is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be  applied  to  all  the 
phenomena  of  religion.  For  science  is  simply  sys- 
tematized knowledge.  But  if,  on  account  of  the 
reconditeness  of  the  field,  Science  is  as  yet  unable 
to  give  a  systematic  explanation  of  all  the  phenom- 


l6  RELIGIOUS    SENTIMENT 

ena  of   the  religious   sentiment,    that   failure   does 
not  invalidate  the  reality  or  the  useful  function  of 
the  sentiment.     The  blood  circulated  in  the  human 
frame  precisely  as  now  before   Harvey  discovered 
the   law   of   its   circulation.      So   religion  and    the 
religious   sentiment   existed   for   long  ages    before 
modern  science  appeared.      Science  has  scattered  or 
is  scattering  the  crude  explanations  of  their  origin 
which  have  come  down  from  uncivilized  and  uncrit- 
ical   times.      By  and   by  it  may  clearly   show  the 
natural   motive  and   law  of  their  development,  and 
demonstrate  their  rational  validity.      Yet  that  va- 
lidity will  not  depend  on  this  discovery  and  dec- 
laration  of    Science.      Science    discovers  a  law  of 
existence,  but  does  not  create  it.     The  validity  of 
religion   is  established   in  the  constitution  of  hu- 
man nature.      It  is  Professor  Tyndall  Vv'ho  writes: 
"There  are  many  things  appertaining  to  man,  over 
and     above    his    understanding,    whose    respective 
rights  are  quite  as  strong  as  those  of  the  under- 
standing itself."      "There  are   such  things  woven 
into  the  texture  of  man  as  the  feeling  of  awe,  rev- 
erence, wonder;  the   love  of  the  beautiful,   physi- 
cal, and  moral,   in  nature,  poetry,  and  art.     There 
is    that    deep-set    feeling    which    has   incorporated 
itself  into  the  religions   of  the  world.     To  yield 
this  sentiment  reasonable  satisfaction  is  the  prob- 
lem of  problems  at  the  present  hour."     And,  if  I 
recall  aright,  it  is  Herbert  Spencer  who  says,  still 
more  pointedly,  in  the  line  of  the  thought  I  have 
just  been  uttering,  "The  religious  sentiment,  like 


IN    THE    LIGHT    OF    SCIENCE  1/ 

the  desire  for  knowledge,  is  a  phase  in  the  energy 
of  nature." 

And  when  we  have  thus  fixed  the  religious  sen- 
timent as  correlated  with  the  innermost  essence 
of  Nature's  being,  or,  in  other  words,  with  that 
Reality  and  Power  Eternal  which  is  behind  all 
phenomena,  material  or  mental,  as  their  source  and 
sustenance,  we  need  entertain  no  anxious  fear  lest 
this  faculty  of  human  nature,  which  has  been  so 
dominant  in  the  past,  is  now  to  suffer  extinction. 
Let  us  not  believe  that,  under  our  rationalistic 
views  of  religion,  the  function  of  religious  emotion 
must  cease,  that  its  place  is  vacated  to  be  filled 
by  some  other  faculty.  The  immediate  objects  of 
religious  sentiment  may  change  from  age  to  age, 
but  the  sentiment  does  not  thereby  cease  as  a  factor 
in  human  action. 

I  have  spoken  a  few  pages  back  of  the  religious 
sentiment  as  necessarily  including  moral  sentiment 
when  rightly  cultivated,  and  without  this  combina- 
tion there  can  be  no  genuine  religion.  And  this 
necessity  has  been  abundantly  proclaimed  and  em- 
phasized by  all  the  great  seers  and  prophets  of 
religion  in  all  faiths, —  not  always  by  theologians 
and  priests,  but  by  the  world's  galaxy  of  immortal 
spiritual  teachers.  But  the  fact  that  the  strange 
deformity  is  not  infrequently  witnessed  of  a  char- 
acter in  which  religious  sentiment  is  developed 
strongly  and  into  great  demonstrativeness  of  ex- 
pression, and  at  the  same  time  conscience  in  the 
same  person  is  so  weak  as  not  to  forbid  most  fla- 


l8  RELIGIOUS    SENTIMENT 

grant  immoralities, —  this  abnormal  fact  has  led  not 
a  few  liberal  thinkers  to  question  whether  religious 
sentiment  has  any  real  and  permanent  value  in 
itself.  Let  me,  therefore,  call  your  attention 
somewhat  more  specially  to  this  point. 

Why,  it  is  asked,  make  a  distinction  between 
the  religious  sentiment  and  the  moral  sentiment, 
since  we  admit,  in  accordance  with  the  teachings 
of  all  the  greatest  religious  prophets,  that  there 
can  be  no  true  religion  without  morality?  Or,  if 
psychologically  there  be  a  distinction,  is  there  any- 
thing in  the  religious  sentiment  when  it  is  devel- 
oped by  itself  apart  from  morality  that  is  worthy 
of  preservation?  What  is  religion  apart  from 
ethics  but  a  mass  of  bigotry  and  superstition? 
Why  not,  then,  reduce  religion  to  what  we  admit  is 
its  best  evidence  and  fruit,  practical  virtue,  and, 
saying  nothing  of  the  religious  sentiment,  aim 
directly  at  that  on  which  there  is  such  general 
agreement  ? 

Now  there  is  a  truth  implied  in  these  critical 
questions  for  which  hospitable  provision  must  be 
made  in  the  institutions  and  practical  efforts  of 
religion.  But,  at  the  same  time,  the  questions  do 
not  cover  the  whole  of  human  nature,  nor  can  the 
ethical  aim  alone  permanently  satisfy.  I  cannot 
believe  that  a  correct  philosophy  either  of  human 
nature  or  of  religious  history  will  identify  religion 
wholly  with  morality,  and,  much  less,  confound  the 
reliGfious  sentiment  with  the  moral  sentiment.  It 
is    true    that    religion    in    its    highest  and    purest 


IN    THE    LIGHT    OF    SCIENCE  I9 

form  cannot  exist  without  morality,  true  that  the 
religious  sentiment,  when  awakened  to  its  best 
efficiency,  must  diffuse  itself  through  the  moral  sen- 
timent, and  make  the  latter  one  of  its  most  effective 
instrumentalities.  Still,  religion  and  morality  are 
not  the  same.  Religion,  when  genuine,  includes 
and  covers  morality,  but  is  more  than  morality. 
The  ethical  sentiment  is  one  of  the  vital  elements 
of  the  religious  sentiment,  but  the  religious  sen- 
timent has  other  elements  of  which  the  ethical 
sentiment  knows  nothing.  The  ethical  sentiment 
may  be  defined  as  man's  feeling  of  obligation  to 
serve  the  right,  and  morality  is  the  conduct  that 
results  from  carrying  this  sense  of  obligation  into 
practice.  In  other  words,  it  is  obedience  to  con- 
science, or  to  a  rational  view  of  what  is  best  for 
individual  and  social  well-being.  But  religion  is 
something  more  than  this.  Even  if  we  say  that 
practically  religion  and  morality  come  to  the  same 
result,  —  goodness, —  it  is  goodness  as  seen  from  dif- 
ferent outlooks,  as  reached  by  different  paths,  and 
as  having  a  somewhat  different  quality.  Matthew 
Arnold  says,  "Religion  is  morality  suffused  with 
emotion."  This  indicates  the  distinction  partially, 
but  does  not  wholly  cover  it  unless  a  very  large 
meaning  be  given  to  the  word  ""morality,"  or  the 
emotion  be  more  specially  defined  as  to  its  cause. 
No  definition  of  religion,  I  think,  will  satisfy  the 
philosophy  of  the  subject  which  does  not  in  some 
way  denote  the  contact  which  the  finite  mind  has 
with  the  vitalizing  and  sustaining  Energy  of   the 


20  RELIGIOUS    SENTIMENT 

universe.  It  is  not  necessary  that  the  definition 
should  embrace  the  idea  of  a  personal  Deity,  not  nec- 
essary that  it  should  attempt  the  impossible  prob- 
lem, which  most  theological  systems  do  attempt, 
of  defining  the  Infinite;  but  it  must,  in  order  to 
cover  all  the  facts,  in  some  way  recognize  the  In- 
finite,—  in  other  words,  recognize  that  the  human 
soul  is  conscious  of  a  life  that  is  not  bounded  by 
its  material  organism  nor  by  any  limits  which  itself 
can  measure,  but  opens  outward  into  the  whole 
infinity  and  eternity  of  things,  and  is  a  natural, 
inherent  part  of  the  universal  order.  I  should 
define  the  religious  sentiment  as  man's  feeling  of 
his  connection  with  the  Infinite  Life  and  Order, 
not  in  any  supernatural  way,  but  by  the  organic 
laws  of  his  being;  and  religion,  as  the  effort  to 
bring  his  own  life  into  harmony  with  what  he  con- 
ceives to  be  the  demands  of  this  higher  and  larger 
Life.  And  this  rounded  religious  consciousness  is 
not  simple,  but  is  a  compound  of  several  elements. 
Into  it  enter  the  idea  of  causality,  the  idea  of  truth, 
the  idea  of  beauty,  the  idea  of  right  and  goodness. 
Without  taking  the  ground  that  these  ideas  are 
innate,  or  forming  any  theory  as  to  their  origin,  it 
is  certain  that  through  them  the  human  mind  finds 
itself  confessing  allegiance  to  a  law  of  life  that  is 
not  of  its  own  creation  and  not  bounded  by  the 
sphere  of  its  own  existence.  These  perceptions  it 
learns  to  interpret  as  indicating  the  purpose  and 
law  of  the  Infinite  Life,  and  yields  itself  to  them  in 
a  joyful   endeavor  not  only  to  attain  harmony  and 


IN    THE    LIGHT   OF    SCIENCE  21 

good  for  one's  self  but  to  serve  the  universal  wel- 
fare. This  is  to  be  rationally  religious.  It  is  to 
do  by  intelligent  choice  and  free  volition  what  the 
plants  do  by  their  structure, —  to  make  a  channel 
through  which  the  ceaseless  energy  may  work  to 
its  ends.  But  these  perceptions  thus  peering  out 
into  the  world's  infinity  of  mystery  and  putting  us 
into  relations  with  things  and  forces  that  are  illim- 
itable, these  perceptions  that  necessarily  stretch 
back  to  the  sources  of  all  material  and  mental 
power  and  downward  or  upward  to  the  primal 
cause  of  things,  are  naturally  accompanied  by  emo- 
tions of  awe,  of  wonder,  of  reverence,  of  adoration, 
of  expectancy,  of  fear  and  hope,  of  solicitude  and 
thanksgiving;  and  these  various  emotions,  accord- 
ing to  the  understanding  and  culture  of  a  people, 
will  take  shape  in  the  various  outward  expressions 
of  religion. 

We  may  see  now,  I  think,  how  it  is  that  the  re- 
ligious sentiment,  though  needing  the  moral  senti- 
ment for  its  perfect  development,  may  yet,  since  it 
includes  so  much  more  than  the  moral  sentiment, 
be  developed  vigorously  in  some  directions  with- 
out it ;  and  how,  under  narrow  and  ignorant  views 
of  the  world  and  its  powers  and  of  man's  relation 
to  them,  the  religious  sentiment  should  have  often 
developed  into  crude  and  superstitious  beliefs  and 
revolting  practices.  These  beliefs  and  practices 
vanish  away  through  the  influence  of  better  knowl- 
edge and  culture;  but  how  the  root  of  the  religious 
sentiment   itself,  which   is  simply  man's  feeling  of 


22  RELIGIOUS    SENTIMENT 

his  relations  to  the  Universal  Life,  is  ever  to  pass 
away  so  long  as  man  is  not  self-existent  and  self- 
derived,  but  is  conscious  that  his  life  is  related  to 
the  whole  universe  of  things,  I  cannot  conceive. 
The  moral  sentiment  itself  is  endowed  with  a 
grander  beauty  and  a  higher  majesty  when  it  is 
thus  felt  to  be  one  of  the  vital  ligaments  by  which 
human  life  is  connected  back  with  the  sources  of 
all  life,  and  is  commissioned  to  work  out  a  purpose 
that  is  not  of  self  nor  of  time,  but  is  eternal.  The 
moral  sentiment  may,  indeed,  do  its  work,  and  do 
it  fairly  well,  without  this  consciousness  of  its 
high  descent  and  dignified  destiny.  The  man  may 
simply  say,  "This  is  duty,  and  must  be  done," 
without  any  thought  as  to  what  duty  means  in  its 
universal  relations,  without  ever  inquiring  into  the 
nature  of  the  pressure  behind  that  little  word 
"ought,"  which  gives  its  authoritative  power. 
When  he  acts  thus,  he  is  simply  moral.  But  when 
to  any  person  the  consciousness  comes,  whether  it 
shape  itself  into  any  formal  belief  or  not,  that, 
through  this  sense  of  "I  ought,"  the  eternal  pur- 
pose of  the  universe  presses  to  accomplish  its  high 
ends,  and  that  he  is  agent  of  a  power  and  purpose 
immeasurably  grander  than  his  own  aims  or  his 
life  even,  then  he  becomes  religious.  Then  he 
feels  that  the  will  of  the  universe  is  at  his  back. 
He  becomes  the  subject  of  superb  inspirations  and 
courage  and  of  high  heroisms  in  action.  He 
treads  the  earth  as  a  master,  holding  a  sovereign 
hand  over  its  destinies,  under  the  Eternal. 


IN    THE    LIGHT    OF    SCIENCE  23 

That  this  powerful  sentiment  is  ever  to  abdicate 
its  office   I  cannot  believe.     That    it  needs  to  be 
lifted  to  the  full    loftiness  of  its  functions  by  en- 
lightenment   and    culture,    removing    its  abnormal 
excrescences,  I  concede  and  plead  for.     But  human 
nature  is  not  to  be   bereaved   by   its   death.      The 
power  that  built  the    wonderful   cathedrals   of   the 
Middle  Ages  has  not  vanished   nor  abated  aught  of 
its  marvellous  and   magical   capacity,  if  to-day,  in- 
stead of  cathedrals  of    stone,  it  builds  its  visions  of 
harmony,  grandeur,  and    beauty,  its  wide  hospitali- 
ties and  generous  sweep  of  human  sympathies,  into 
the  characters    of    living    men    and    women.     The 
power  which  once  set  in  motion  the  crusades  might 
not  be  able  to  raise  the  smallest   army  for  a  like 
object  to-day;  but  it  is  not   exhausted  so  long  as  it 
summons  men  and  women  to   nobler  heroisms  and 
purer    causes.     Guided    by   reason    and    the   moral 
sense,  pervaded  and   regulated  by  a  wise  culture, 
religious  sentiment   may  be  an  element   in  human 
nature  and  life  as  vitally  creative  to-day  as   it  has 
ever  been  in  the  past.      When  poetry  shall  die  out 
of  the   human   soul ;   when    man   shall   cease  to   be 
moved  by  any  of  the  sublime   spectacles  in  nature; 
when  his  heart    shall    no  more  be  entranced  by  ex- 
hibitions  of    heroic    virtue;  when    truth    shall    no 
longer  attract  his  admiring  mind;  when  all  visions 
of  ideal   excellence  shall    fade  away  from  his  eager 
eyes,  and  he  shall    no  longer  stand  erect,  with  eyes 
lifted    upward   and    forward   toward   the    longed-for 
light    of  the  better  day  to   come;  when   the   great 


24  RELIGIOUS    SENTIMENT 

mystery  of  Being,  in  which  man  lives  and  moves 
and  has  his  being,  shall  have  no  power  to  stir  a 
thought  or  a  feeling  within  him, —  in  short,  when 
he  shall  be  no  longer  man,  then,  but  not  till  then, 
will  religious  sentiment  become  a  dead  faculty  in 
his  nature.  But  so  long  as  man  remains  a  being 
capable  of  feeling  the  power  of  truth,  goodness, 
beauty,  and  he  is  conscious  of  an  inevitable  mental 
attraction,  in  however  vague  way,  to  some  deeper 
Reality  which  may  be  their  eternal  source  and 
unity, —  in  fine,  so  long  as  man  stays  man,  the  re- 
ligious sentiment  must  stay  as  a  vital  part  of  him; 
for  it  is  the  veritable  life  of  ages  pulsing  in  his 
consciousness,  thrilling  his  organism  with  a  sense 
of  the  majesty  of  its  eternal  purpose  and  law,  and 
with  a  measure  of  its  supreme  calmness  and  joy. 


THE   TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM    IN    THE 
NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 


THE    ETERNAL    OUR    SHEPHERD. 

"  The  Lord  is  my  Shepherd  ;  I  shall  not  want." 

The  Twenty-third  Psalm  as  a  whole  is  a  spe- 
cially fine  antique  expression  of  religion;  and  in 
this  series  of  lectures  we  are  to  consider  the  ques- 
tion. What  does  this  pious  utterance  mean  for  us 
to-day,  in  view  of  the  most  enlightened  and  scien- 
tific ideas  of  religion  which  the  nineteenth  century 
has  been  furnishing?  The  Psalm  divides  naturally 
by  its  six  verses,  each  of  them  presenting  a  special 
phase  of  the  relation  between  religious  sentiment 
and  religious  thinking.  Hence  the  general  theme 
will  divide  easily  into  six  discourses,  each  with  its 
specific  form  of  the  question  just  stated. 

But  before  I  proceed  to  the  particular  verse,  the 
opening  one,  which  will  occupy  our  attention 
to-day,  let  me  make  two  or  three  brief  prefatory 
statements    applicable    to   the    Psalm   as   a   whole. 

First,  the  question  of  the  date  and  authorship  of 
the  Psalm  is  of  little  or  no  account,  as  concerns 
our  present  purpose.     The  application  of  the  mod- 


26  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

ern  method  of  scientific  investigation  to  Biblical 
literature  makes  it  one  of  the  assured  results  of 
criticism  that  most  of  the  Psalms  attributed  to 
David,  and  this  among  the  number,  must  have  had 
a  later  origin.  And,  for  myself,  I  should  prefer  to 
believe  that  the  picture  of  idyllic  innocence  and 
serene  moral  confidence  which  we  have  in  the 
Twenty-third  Psalm  did  not  have  for  its  author  a 
man  of  so  many  villanies  and  crimes  as  are  re- 
corded against  King  David.  But  in  these  lectures 
we  are  to  consider  the  Psalm  for  what  it  is  in  it- 
self, without  reference  to  its  origin,  except  that  we 
know  that  it  belongs  to  the  ancient  Hebrew  litera- 
ture. Second,  the  Psalm  presents,  in  an  excep- 
tionally pure  and  exalted  form,  an  expression  of 
the  religious  sentiment,  an  expression  vivid  with 
local  and  national  coloring;  yet  its  few  sentences 

—  for  it  is  among  the  briefest  of  the  Psalms  —  are 
so  free  from  antiquated  dogmas  that  there  is  noth- 
ing in  it  which  must  needs  offend  modern  rational- 
istic thought  when  it  is  remembered  that  the 
whole  form  of  the  utterance  is  poetical.  It  is 
poetry  of  the  religious  sentiment  with  which  we 
are  here  dealing,  and   not  with  theological  prose, 

—  with  pictures  and  metaphors  of  the  ideal  realm 
of  the  imagination,  not  with  logical  syllogisms. 
Third,  the  common  English  version  of  the  Psalm 
has  become  so  fixed  in  the  memories  of  people  and 
so  embedded  with  their  strongest  religious  associa- 
tions that  I  shall  use  it  in  preference  to  a  more 
literal   rendering,  pointing  out,  however,   when  we 


THE  ETERNAL  OUR  SHEPHERD  2/ 

come  to  them,  the  places  where  an  exacter  mean- 
ing might  be  given  by  a  different  version.  The 
revised  version  of  the  Old  Testament  only  ventures 
a  change  in  two  words  in  this  Psalm,  and  those 
so  slight  as  to  be  hardly  noticeable.  Of  other 
changes  which  a  more  exact  conformity  to  the 
original  might  require,  I  will  add  that  they  would 
not,  as  in  some  other  Biblical  passages,  detract 
from  the  spiritual  beauty  and  significance  of  the 
sentiment,    but,    rather,    enrich   it. 

And  now  I  ask  you  to  consider  with  me  the  first 
verse  of  this  little  Hebrew  poem  of  religious  confi- 
dence and  hope,  querying  with  ourselves  thought- 
fully what  it  can  mean  for  us. 

"The  Lord  is  my  Shepherd;  I  shall  not  want"; 
so  we  read  or  repeat  the  words  from  our  Bibles, 
and  always,  I  think,  with  a  tender  reverence.  But 
do  we  recall  them  merely  for  their  tender  senti- 
ment, expressed  by  a  picturesque  poetic  metaphor? 
Or  do  the  words  still  stand  for  some  very  real  truth 
to  us,  of  which  they  have  power  to  excite  a  vivid 
feeling?  We  are  to  remember  that  religious  senti- 
ment, like  sentiment  in  general,  has  two  quite  dis- 
tinct phases.  A  noble  work  of  art,  for  instance, — 
a  great  poem,  a  great  piece  of  music,  —  may  affect 
us  to  the  point  of  enthusiastic  admiration  and  inci- 
dentall}'  touch  even  deeper  feelings  simply  through 
its  high  artistic  power,  irrespective  of  the  ideas  it 
was  meant  to  convey;  the  ideas  in  such  cases  are 
merely  a  skeleton,  which  sentiment  covers  with  its 
own  forms   of  beauty  and   life.      But,   if  the   ideas 


28  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

and  the  excellence  of  the  art  both  are  able  to  strike 
responsive  chords  in  our  mental  organism,  then  we 
have  a  correspondingly  larger  satisfaction.  And 
this  unity  in  an  enlarged  result  is  especially  im- 
portant in  religious  usage.  Without  it  we  may 
have  the  piety  of  an  aesthetic  ritualism  and  the 
cherished  associations  of  traditional  and  liturgical 
forms  of  worship,  but  not  that  profoundest  reality 
of  worship  which  is  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  And 
this  phrase,  "in  spirit  and  in  truth,"  well  ex- 
presses the  desired  combination  of  sentiment  and 
thought  which  should  be  sought  in  religion  as  a 
preserver  of  sincerity.  There  is  a  mental  percep- 
tion of  truth  which  is  one  of  the  characteristics  of 
the  understanding,  or  the  reasoning  faculty;  but 
there  is  also  a  feeling  of  truth,  which  is  the  func- 
tion of  sentiment  in  its  highest  form.  And  this 
feeling  of  truth  is  a  phase  of  sentiment  which 
means  a  great  deal  more  for  man's  nobler  culture 
than  can  be  wrought  by  any  amount  of  emotion 
excited  by  a  rare  achievement  in  the  forms  of  art 
merely,  or  by  a  tender  affection  for  the  beautiful 
in  poetical  expression. 

So  again  I  ask,  when  we  repeat  the  old  words, 
"The  Lord  is  my  Shepherd;  I  shall  not  want,"  do 
we  cherish  them  simply  for  their  poetic  beauty  and 
their  venerable  antiquity,  or  do  we  have  a  feeling 
of  their  truth?  Here,  in  this  first  verse,  the  key- 
note of  the  Psalm  is  struck  in  the  pastoral  meta- 
phor wherein  Jehovah  is  pictured  as  shepherd;  and 
the  note  is  carried  through  to  the  end,  in  all  the 


THE  ETERNAL  OUR  SHEPHERD  29 

succeeding  imagery,  even  though  the  metaphor  is 
abruptly  changed  just  before  the  close.  If  this 
first  note  does  not  ring  true  for  us,  then  there  must 
be  for  us  falsity  all  through;  beautiful  words, 
but  not,  for  us,  the  beautiful  thought!  Perhaps 
some  critic  may  say  that,  however  forcible  this 
picture  of  Jehovah  may  have  been  to  the  primitive 
Oriental  people  among  whom  it  was  uttered  so 
many  centuries  ago,  and  where  one  of  the  chief 
occupations  of  life  was  the  care  of  flocks  and  herds, 
it  can  have  little  significance  to  the  civilized  na- 
tions of  the  earth  in  this  nineteenth  century.  To 
the  Hebrew,  indeed,  who  was  wont  to  conceive  of 
Jehovah  as  a  mighty  monarch,  a  God  of  hosts  and 
of  battles,  a  leader  of  armies  against  the  national 
enemies,  a  thunderer  in  the  heavens,  and  a  sender 
of  plagues  and  of  pestilence,  in  his  displeasure, 
upon  the  earth,  it  must  have  been  a  comforting 
relief  to  listen  to  this  confident  description  of 
the  same  supreme  sovereign  as  a  wise  and  tender 
shepherd  personally  leading  his  flock  and  supervis- 
ing and  securing  the  highest  felicity  of  each  one. 
But,  our  critic  asks,  are  not  both  of  these  concep- 
tions, that  of  the  mighty  monarch  who  was  the 
leader  of  armies,  and  that  of  the  tender  shepherd 
who  was  the  leader  of  flocks,  equally  obsolete  as 
descriptions  of  Deity  to-day? 

Other  critics  may  dispute  the  facts  stated  in  the 
verse,  as  at  variance  with  human  experience. 
Could  the  starving  Russians  last  year,  it  is  asked, 
believe   in  a  Deity  who  was  a  Shepherd  to  them 


30  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

and  would  not  suffer  them  to  want?  The  Russian 
peasants  have  been  taught  that  the  czar  himself,  as 
head  of  the  church,  is  God's  vicegerent  on  earth, 
having  supreme  power.  Yet  they  found  him  able 
in  their  dire  famine  to  lead  them  into  no  green 
pastures  of  plenty  and  refreshment.  Or  what  truth 
was  there  in  this  sentiment,  "The  Lord  is  my 
Shepherd;  he  will  take  care  of  me;  I  shall  not 
want,"  for  those  thousands  of  victims  of  the  late 
earthquakes  in  Japan  and  Zante?  or  for  those 
suffering  and  slaughtered  by  the  recent  rage  of  tor- 
nado and  tide  in  Louisiana  and  on  the  South 
Atlantic  coast?  or  for  the  hungry  and  famishing 
ones  who,  thrown  out  of  employment,  may  be 
found  in  most  of  our  large  cities  to-day,  those 
who  know  not  to-night  where  to-morrow's  bread  is 
coming  from,  and  whose  natural  "want"  of  food  is 
seldom  on  any  day  fully  satisfied?  Can  any  of 
these  classes  of  people  repeat  with  truth  the  pious 
phrase,  "The  Lord  is  my  Shepherd;  I  shall  not 
want  "  ? 

Yet  such  objections,  it  must  be  replied  first, 
could  just  as  legitimately  be  made  in  the  Hebrew 
singer's  own  time.  As  to  the  first  of  these  sup- 
posed querists, —  and  they  are  not  merely  imagi- 
nary persons,  but  represent  real  objectors  to  the 
conception  of  Deity  as  a  Shepherd  of  the  human 
race, —  the  first  of  our  critics  is  treating  this  Psalm 
as  if  it  were  intended  as  a  philosophical  or  meta- 
physical conception  of  Deity,  whereas  it  is  poetry, 
and  not  theology;  and  poetry,  if  genuine  and  lofty. 


THE  ETERNAL  OUR  SHEPHERD  31 

never  becomes  obsolete.  The  Psalmists,  whoever 
they  were  and  whenever  they  wrote,  were  not  logi- 
cians nor  scientists:  they  were  simply  religious 
poets.  Of  science  there  was  then  nothing  bearing 
that  name  in  the  modern  sense.  Nor  were  these 
writers  engaged  in  producing  such  works  as  Cal- 
vin's "Institutes"  or  Barclay's  "Apology."  They 
had  no  concern  with  the  metaphysical  problems  of 
religion  which  taxed  the  powers  of  those  eminent 
logicians,  and  would  not  probably  have  appreciated 
those  famous  treatises  even  so  well  as  you  and  I 
can.  Our  Psalmist  was  simply  a  poetical  observer 
of  nature  and  human  life  from  a  religious  point  of 
view,  and  then  he  put  what  he  saw  and  felt  into 
song.  He  would  have  made  no  insistence  on  the 
conception  of  Supreme  Being  as  a  Shepherd,  as  if 
that  were  a  description  of  Deity  excluding  all 
others.  On  the  contrary,  he  turned  readily  from 
one  metaphor  to  another,  according  as  he  viewed 
for  the  time  being  one  aspect  or  another  of  man's 
relations  to  the  mysterious  infinity  of  the  world- 
forces.  Now  Jehovah  was  the  tender  Shepherd; 
but  anon  the  same  pen  might  characterize  him 
as  man's  Fortress,  his  Rock,  his  King,  his 
high  Tower,  his  Sun  and  Shield,  his  Light,  his 
Life,  his  Savior,  Father,  Law-giver,  and  Judge. 
Writers  who  employ  in  their  work  such  picturesque 
conceptions  and  descriptions  as  these  are  no  more 
to  be  judged  by  the  rules  of  prose  and  logic  than  is 
Longfellow's  poem  of  "The  Building  of  the  Ship," 
with  its  closing  application  to  the  "Ship  of  State," 


32  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

to  be  submitted  to  the  same  standards  of  criticism 
as  the  Federalist  or  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  The  close  of  this  poem,  indeed, 
with  its  felicitous  expression  of  ideal  hopes  and 
prophecies  for  the  union  of  the  States  against 
actual  inimical  assaults  and  threatened  perils  and 
death,  may  be  taken  as  a  happy  illustration,  from 
our  own  time,  of  just  what  the  poetical  conception 
of  Jehovah  as  their  Shepherd  meant  for  the  He- 
brews  in  the  midst  of  their  national  troubles. 

For,  again,  those  commentators  err  who  imagine 
that  the  writer  of  "the  Lord  my  Shepherd"  must 
have  written  out  of  the  provincial  experience  of  an 
idyllic  pastoral  life,  and  knew  nothing  of  the  ter- 
rific evils  against  which  the  human  race  as  a 
whole  has  to  struggle,  evils  which,  these  objectors 
think,  overthrow  the  theory  of  a  shepherding  Provi- 
dence. On  the  contrary,  the  Hebrews  had  experi- 
mental acquaintance  with  nearly  every  form  of 
human  woe.  They  were  aggressive  and  ambitious 
as  a  nation.  At  first  they  were  a  group  of  discon- 
tented wandering  tribes  seeking  a  better  domain 
for  their  homes,  better  pasturage  for  their  flocks. 
They  were,  in  consequence,  almost  continually  at 
war  with  their  neighbors.  They  became  divided, 
too,  into  warring  factions  among  themselves. 
There  were  rival  and  fighting  claimants  for  the 
throne,  with  the  customary  Oriental  incidents  of 
intestine  intrigues,  strifes,  assassinations.  There 
were  seasons  of  famine  and  pestilence.  Nature, 
with  all   her  friendliness,  was  not  always  friendly. 


THE  ETERNAL  OUR  SHEPHERD  33 

Her  pitiless  bitterness  was  a  familiar  foe.  In  the 
reign  of  King  David  himself,  the  reputed  writer  of 
"The  Lord  is  my  Shepherd;  I  shall  not  want," 
there  was  a  fearful  plague  and  a  famine  of  three 
years,  when  David  ordered  some  of  the  chief  of  his 
domestic  enemies  to  be  killed,  as  a  sacrifice  to  ap- 
pease the  wrath  of  Jehovah,  who  was  believed  to 
have  sent  this  calamity  upon  his  people  for  their 
sins.  Later  the  nation  was  conquered,  scattered, 
carried  into  captivity.  Yet,  through  all  and  after 
all,  the  national  prophets  and  poets  did  not  cease 
to  preach  and  sing —  in  full  confidence,  in  order  to 
nerve  the  national  heart  and  will  —  their  ideal  faith 
and  hope  in  Jehovah  as  a  good  Shepherd,  who 
would  lead  his  flock  out  of  bondage  and  want  into 
plenty  and  peace. 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  even  originally  this 
conception  of  Jehovah  as  a  Shepherd  had  for  its 
germ  a  faith,  a  thought,  which  went  below  the  su- 
perficial appearances  of  events,  and  was  rooted  in 
some  deeper  reality  than  outward  prosperity  and 
contentment.  Mere  freedom  from  calamity  and 
suffering, —  this  was  not  what  the  wise,  devout 
Hebrew  meant  when  he  sang  of  Jehovah  his  Shep- 
herd. This  might  come  as  a  consequence,  but  it 
was  not  the  essential  thing  which  in  his  inmost 
heart  he  craved.  There  he  touched  a  measurement 
of  want  and  of  weal,  in  which  purely  outward 
treasures  and  pleasures,  however  much  he  valued 
them,  did  not  count.  The  Psalmist  was  not  a  phi- 
losopher, like  Socrates;  yet  he  approached  in  this 


34  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

thought  the  wise  Greek's  prayer:  "O  all  ye  gods, 
grant  me  to  be  beautiful  in  soul;  and  may  all 
that  I  possess  of  outward  things  be  in  harmony 
with  those  within."  Nor  did  the  Psalmist  have 
the  stoical  nature  of  the  Roman  Epictetus;  yet, 
though  his  hope  was  more  buoyant  and  childlike 
than  that  of  Rome's  slave-philosopher,  it  was  kin- 
dred in  spirit  to  that  confidence  with  which  Epic- 
tetus declared  his  faith  toward  Zeus:  "Though  he 
set  me  before  mankind  poor,  powerless,  sick;  ban- 
ish me,  lead  me  to  prison, —  shall  I  think  that  he 
hates  me?  Heaven  forbid!  .  .  .  Nor  that  he  neg- 
lects me;  but  to  exercise  me  and  to  make  use  of 
me  as  a  witness  to  others."  And  it  was  in  one  of 
the  Hebrew  books,  by  an  author  who  was  a  phi- 
losopher as  well  as  poet, —  the  Book  of  Job, — 
that  this  expression  of  implicit  confidence  in  Deity 
reaches  the  climax  of  depreciation  and  sacrifice  as 
to  the  things  ordinarily  regarded  as  necessary  for 
the  satisfaction  of  human  wants.  Out  of  the  midst 
of  his  afflictions  Job  says  to  his  vain  counsellors, 
"Though  the  Almighty  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in 
him." 

There  is  no  occasion,  then,  to  believe  that,  when 
the  Hebrew  thought  of  Jehovah  as  a  Shepherd,  he 
necessarily  expected  a  cosseting  care  for  individ- 
ual human  souls,  which  would  save  them  from  all 
pains,  anxieties,  trials,  and  personal  efforts  for 
themselves.  This  "  Lord  my  Shepherd "  Psalm 
itself  contradicts  such  an  idea.  It  speaks  of 
dangers,  terrors,  darkness,  enemies,  to  be  encoun- 


THE  ETERNAL  OUR  SHEPHERD  35 

tered.  Nor  would  the  metaphor  of  the  office  of 
shepherd,  drawn  from  the  writer's  personal  knowl- 
edge or  experience,  convey  the  idea  of  escape  from 
all  encounter  with  the  hazards  and  perils  of  life. 
The  Hebrew  shepherds  at  their  best  did  not  protect 
their  flocks  against  all  unhappiness.  They  could 
not  make  the  grass  to  grow  wherever  they  wished. 
The  way  to  the  green  pastures  was  sometimes 
long  and  wearying.  The  refreshing  fountains  were 
sometimes  dried.  Violent  assaults  could  not 
always  be  warded  off.  And  once  every  year  the 
shepherd  himself  led  his  flocks  to  the  shearers' 
hands.  And  any  one  who  has  seen  the  plaintive 
pathos  of  entreaty  on  the  face  of  a  sheep  under  the 
shears,  tied  against  struggling,  and  even  though, 
according  to  the  Scripture,  dumb,  will  know  that 
the  operation  to  the  poor  creature  is  no  pleasant 
experience,  however  needful  it  may  be  for  man- 
kind. The  good  shepherd  was  wise  and  tender, 
but  his  wisdom  and  tenderness  had  their  limita- 
tions; and  these  limiting  conditions  the  flocks 
could  not  always  readily  distinguish  from  hardness 
and  cruelty.  So,  though  Jehovah  was  believed  to 
be  a  being  of  infinite  wisdom  and  tenderness,  the 
Hebrew  devoutly  acknowledged  that  his  ways  of 
showing  his  wisdom  and  kindness  in  the  leadership 
of  Israel  might  often  be  beyond  the  limits  of  man's 
vision  and  knowledge.  Nevertheless,  despite  all 
apparent  aberrations  and  delinquencies,  he  still 
trusted  the  divine  leadership;  and  this  was  the 
highest  test  of  the  loyalty  of  Hebrew  faith. 


36  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

We  are  now  prepared  to  see  what  were  the  essen- 
tial elements  of  the  Psalmist's  conception  of  Je- 
hovah as  Shepherd.  There  are  only  two  of  them, 
but  two  which  to  him  covered  the  whole  infinity 
of  the  character  of  the  Hebrews'  Deity,  however 
variously  they  described  him  by  other  forms  of 
speech.  The  first  of  these  elements  will  be  made 
conspicuous  at  once  by  a  more  exact  rendering  of 
the  leading  word  of  the  Psalm.  Let  us  translate  it 
thus:  "The  Eternal  is  my  Shepherd."  The  word 
which  is  translated  as  "Lord"  in  the  common 
version  is  the  Hebrew  word  "Jehovah,"  more  cor- 
rectly, "Yahweh, "  and  its  literal  meaning  is  "eter- 
nal existence."  "I  am  that  I  am"  is  a  Script- 
ural paraphrase  of  its  meaning.  Here  was  indi- 
cated the  Being  of  all  beings,  Power  of  all  powers, 
the  mystery  of  supreme  existence  prior  to  and 
penetrating  all  finite  existences.  "The  Eternal" 
appears  to  be  as  good  an  English  phrase  for  the 
idea  as  any  that  can  be  found  of  equal  brevity. 
And  what  the  Hebrew  meant  was  that,  amidst  all 
that  was  transitory,  finite,  changeable,  perishable, 
confused,  and  uncertain  in  human  affairs,  there 
was  an  Eternal  Power  as  leader,  a  Power  working 
through  and  over  all  for  some  sublime  and  lasting 
end  of  its  own.  This  is  the  first  essential  element 
of  the  Psalmist's  conception  of  Deity  as  a  Shep- 
herd, or  Leader,  of  his  people.  And  the  second 
element  is  that  this  leadership  is  accomplished  and 
the  sublime  end  of  the  Eternal  reached  through  the 
law  of  righteousness.     The  devout  Hebrew  believed 


THE  ETERNAL  OUR  SHEPHERD  37 

that  the  Eternal  was  himself  the  author  and  giver 
of  the  law  of  righteousness,  and  that  amidst  and 
despite  all  the  moral  disloyalty  and  disobedience, 
all  the  vices  and  wickedness  and  crimes  and  calam- 
ities of  the  Hebrew  people,  the  Eternal  would  turn 
and  overturn,  check  and  punish,  until  Israel  was 
established  in  righteousness;  and  that  the  prosper- 
ity and  peace  which  the  nation  dreamed  of  as  its 
ideal  destiny  could  only  be  attained  through  the 
people's  learning  and  keeping  the  ways  of  right- 
eousness. 

These,  let  me  repeat,  were  the  two  essential 
facts  to  which  the  Hebrew  held  in  his  metaphori- 
cal description  of  Jehovah  as  Shepherd:  first,  the 
Eternal,  through  all  change  and  transitoriness,  is 
man's  leader;  second,  the  road  of  leadership  is  up 
the  ways  of  righteousness,  to  safety,  felicity,  and 
peace.  The  Eternal  Power  that  maketh  for  right- 
eousness—  to  adopt  essentially  Matthew  Arnold's 
oft-quoted  phraseology  —  expresses  well  the  He- 
brew conception  of  Jehovah  in  its  inner  signifi- 
cance. 

And  now  I  ask  whether  the  intervening  centuries 
have  rendered  these  two  declarations  obsolete  and 
nugatory?  Has  the  nineteenth  century  taken  us 
past  them?  Have  we  any  science  that  has  contro- 
verted them?  Is  there  any  philosophy  of  the  uni- 
verse that  does  not  use  these  two  ideas,  in  some 
shape,  for  corner-stones?  Is  there  any  rational 
and  ethical,  not  to  say  religious,  action  of  man 
that  does  not   in   some  way   involve  them  ? 


91794 


38  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

Of  course,  the  Hebrew  gave  other  distinctive  at- 
tributes to  his  Deity,  generally  clothing  him  with 
very  anthropomorphic  qualities  and  features,  and 
representing  him  as  personally  and  miraculously 
overseeing  and  arranging  all  the  affairs  of  individ- 
ual human  lives.  In  this  region  we  should  cer- 
tainly find  many  dogmas  which  have  been  outgrown 
and  abandoned,  many  opinions  which  to-day's  sci- 
ence and  reason  would  deny.  But  these  beliefs 
were  merely  subsidiary  to  the  two  points  of  faith 
just  named  and  in  no  wise  essential  conditions  of 
their  soundness,  and  in  the  Psalm  of  the  Eternal 
as  our  Shepherd  these  merely  temporary  beliefs 
have  little  place.  In  that  poetic  utterance,  only 
those  two  central  points  of  Hebrew  faith — the 
Eternal  as  leader,  and  a  leader  Righteous  and 
Good  — are  prominent. 

What,  then,  does  the  rational  and  scientific 
thought  of  modern  times  have  to  say  on  these  two 
points  of  the  Hebrew  faith  in  Jehovah  as  a  Shep- 
herd ?  On  the  first  point,  as  soon  as  we  give  the 
literal  translation,  "  The  Eternal  is  my  Shepherd," 
there  comes  at  once  to  view  a  remarkable  parallel- 
ism. "The  Eternal"  we  may  almost  say  is  the 
phrase  of  science.  Eternal  power,  eternal  energy 
or  force,  eternal  existence, —  these  are  all  expres- 
sions to  represent  that  something,  that  original, 
uncreated,  and  unevolved  substance  of  being  which 
all  science  and  all  discussions  about  the  universe 
have  to  assume  as  the  basis  of  all  phenomena. 
There   is  no  blankest  atheism,    no  form  of  philo- 


THE  ETERNAL  OUR  SHEPHERD  39 

sophical  materialism,  which  does  not  admit  the 
existence  of  such  a  power.  The  great  scientific 
doctrine  of  evolution,  which  is  revolutionizing  so 
many  theories  of  philosophy  and  religion,  demands 
an  eternal  evolving  force  or  agency.  Herbert 
Spencer,  the  prince  of  agnostics,  calls  it  the 
"Ultimate  Reality,"  and,  more  descriptive  still, 
"an  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy,  from  which  all 
things  proceed."  This  is  "the  Eternal"  of  the 
Hebrew,  the  very  meaning  of  the  word  "Jehovah," 
the  "I  am  that  I  am."  These  are  all  names  or 
phrases  demanded  in  the  name  of  science  or  even 
of  the  crudest  reasoning  faculty  for  that  primal 
Reality  without  which  nothing  that  we  see,  or 
know,  or  that  anywhere  exists,  could  ever  have 
been.  When  Spencer  calls  it  "an  Infinite  and 
Eternal  Energy,  from  which  all  things  proceed," 
he  describes  it  in  the  bare  prose  of  scientific  state- 
ment. Yet,  when  he  speaks  of  man  as  ever,  by  an 
absolute  certainty,  in  the  presence  of  the  mystery 
of  this  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy,  we  begin  to 
have,  even  when  thus  expressed  with  logical  bare- 
ness, that  feeling  of  its  truth  which  approaches 
religion.  Now,  add  to  the  same  thought  the  sen- 
timent of  poetry  in  the  expression  of  it,  with  no 
added  attribute  of  character  whatever,  and  we  have 
Wordsworth's 

"  Sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns. 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air 


40  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man, — 
A  motion  and  a  spirit,  tliat  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought. 
And  rolls  through  all  things." 

This  is  only  "the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy, 
from  which  all  things  proceed,"  depicted  with  no 
conscious  intelligence  nor  purpose,  but  only  as 
universal  motive  power;  yet,  in  the  guise  of  poetic 
sentiment,  the  conception  rises  into  the  realm  of 
religion. 

But  the  Hebrew  poet  went  further.  In  describ- 
ing God  under  the  phrase  "my  Shepherd,"  he  de- 
picted the  Eternal  Energy  as  acting  with  intelli- 
gence and  a  good  purpose.  He  meant  to  declare 
that  the  Eternal  Power  was  to  be  trusted  to  guide 
man  through  all  trials  and  perplexities  to  the 
happiest  results,  because  it  was  united  with  attri- 
butes of  infinite  Wisdom  and  Righteousness.  Can 
we  say  that  modern  scientific  and  philosophical 
thought  as  confidently  indorses  this  second  point  of 
Hebrew  faith  as  it  indorses  the  first?  Frankly  we 
must  admit  that  as  yet  it  does  not.  Science  here 
becomes  agnostic.  For  settling  questions  of  infi- 
nite personality  and  of  an  eternal,  conscious,  pur- 
posive intelligence  apart  from  finite  intelligence, 
scientists,  for  the  most  part,  declare  that  they  have 
no  data.  If  they  believe  that  the  Eternal  has 
these  attributes,  they  will  say  they  hold  their 
belief  on  other  than  strictly  scientific  grounds. 
Philosophy,  too,  is  hesitating,  uncertain,  and  vari- 
ant in  its  voices  on  these  intricate  problems;  and 


THE  ETERNAL  OUR  SHEPHERD  4I 

even  theology,  once  claiming  that  here  was  her 
special  field  of  revelation,  has  lost  a  good  deal 
of  her  old  positiveness,  has  become  apologetic. 
What  shall  we  say,  then?  Is  the  Eternal  merely 
blind,  unintelligent  power  with  no  moral  aim,  no 
purpose  wise  and  beneficent  in  its  scope?  If  so, 
then  we  must  part  company  with  the  Psalmist's 
thought  of  the  Eternal  as  our  Shepherd;  and 
we  may  as  well  let  the  pretty  sentiment  of  it  go, 
too,  if  we  cannot  with  mental  integrity  keep  the 
thought.  But,  for  one,  I  believe  that  we  may  ra- 
tionally hold  to  the  thought  that  the  Eternal  Power 
shepherds  mankind  and  all  creatures. 

For  proof  of  this  belief  I  am  not  going  into  any 
questions,  subtle  and  metaphysical,  concerning  In- 
finite Personality  and  Eternal  Conscious  Intelli- 
gence. I  am  ready  to  accept  such  beliefs  as 
philosophical  inferences,  provided  that  I  am  not 
required  to  define  these  alleged  attributes  of  Abso- 
lute Being  too  closely  by  their  human  and  finite 
counterparts.  But  for  proof  of  my  belief  in  a  wise 
and  beneficent  activity  interfused  with  Eternal 
Power  I  do  not  begin  at  the  infinite  side  of  the 
universe.  I  begin  just  where  science  begins, — 
among  finite  things.  Leave,  if  you  please,  for  the 
moment  at  least,  infinite  intelligence  out  of 
account;  and  begin  with  the  lowest  terms  of  ra- 
tional knowledge.  What  then?  We  find,  first, 
that  the  world  in  all  its  knowable  parts  and  opera- 
tions is  an  intelligible  world,  part  adapted  to  part 
and  force  adjusted  to  force,  in  an  order  and  har- 


42  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

mony  productive  of  certain  results,  upon  which  our 
intelligence  can  certainly  calculate.  Were  the 
world  a  mere  medley  of  aimless  forces,  operating 
by  chance  and  whim  and  at  cross-purposes,  human 
beings  could  not  with  all  their  intelligence  adjust 
themselves  to  it,  and  life  would  become  impossi- 
ble. That  the  world  is  intelligible  gives  us  all  the 
effects  and  benefits  of  purpose  and  aim  and  law, 
whether  we  affirm  or  not  an  infinite  conscious  intel- 
ligence pervading  and  governing  it.  And  in  all 
practical  accomplishment  of  the  ends  of  his  exist- 
ence it  is  vastly  more  important  for  man  rationally 
to  adjust  himself  to  a  world  of  intelligible  forces, 
laws,  and  activities  than  to  try  to  conceive  and 
adore  a  being  of  infinite  intelligence  in  a  vague 
somewhere  above  the  universe.  And,  second,  we 
find  the  known  and  knowable  universe  to  be  not 
only  intelligible,  but  to  be  subject  in  its  own 
activities  and  unfoldings  to  amelioration.  It  is  an 
improvable  universe.  There  is  a  mounting  from 
low  and  crude  forms  of  life  to  something  higher 
and  better.  The  very  power  of  life  itself  tends  to 
eliminate  the  evil,  which  resists  its  aims  and 
destiny.  That  is  the  very  meaning  of  evil,  —  re- 
sistance to  the  power  and  aim  of  life.  Hence  the 
law  of  life  is  from  bad  to  good,  and  from  good  to 
better  and  Best;  that  is,  ever  toward  fairer  and 
nobler  forms  and  organisms  of  life.  And  man, 
through  his  rational  and  moral  consciousness  and 
his  consequent  intelligent  purpose  and  moral  en- 
deavor, is  made  a  helper   in  this  ameliorating  and 


THE  ETERNAL  OUR  SHEPHERD  43 

ascending  process.  Nothing  is  better  established 
by  the  evidence  of  history  than  that  the  Law  of 
Righteousness  greatens  in  its  authority  and  in  its 
results  both  in  respect  to  nations  and  individuals 
with  the  lapse  of  centuries.  But,  third,  accord- 
ing to  the  doctrine  of  evolution  it  is  the  Eternal 
Power  itself  that  is  actively  and  organically  mani- 
fest in  the  intelligible  order,  law,  harmony  of  the 
world-forces,  and  in  all  the  meliorating  and  as- 
cending activities  of  those  forces,  and  in  the  mind 
and  heart,  in  the  moral  will  and  righteous  deed  of 
man.  And,  consequently,  all  this  ascent  which  is 
open  to  us  human  beings  into  larger  and  richer 
realms  of  life  above  mere  material  existence,  and 
the  very  impulse  toward  the  ascent,  as  also  that 
inward  faculty  of  adjustment  to  circumstances, 
whether  they  seem  favorable  or  unfavorable,  so  as 
to  turn  them  into  some  kind  of  benefit,  —  all  these 
dominant  factors  in  the  conduct  of  life  we  owe  to 
the  actual  leadership  of  the  Power  Eternal.  There- 
fore, I  can  say  the  Eternal  is  my  Shepherd.  And, 
with  this  present  fact  underneath  me  and  express- 
ing the  innermost  reality  and  meaning  of  my  exist- 
ence to-day,  I  have  as  little  interest  to  prove  as  to 
deny  that  in  the  primeval  eras,  before  the  first 
whirl  in  the  fire-mist  whence  our  solar  universe 
had  its  origin,  this  Eternal  Power  must  have 
existed  in  a  personal  entity  together  with  Infinite 
Wisdom  and  Infinite  Beneficence.  There  you  carry 
me  off  to  a  distant  metaphysical  question.  It  may 
have  an   interest  for  the  logician,   but  I  prefer  to 


44  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

stay  with  present  facts.  It  suffices  me  to  know  that 
the  Eternal  Power  is  now  organized  in  the  law, 
order,  harmony,  beauty,  purpose,  adaptation  of  force 
to  benefit,  and  ever-ascending  life  and  increasing 
righteousness  of  this  world  which  I  inhabit,  and 
where  I,  too,  am  called  to  some  harmonious  service 
for  the  enlargement  of  its  well-being.  It  is  thus 
that  the  Eternal  shepherds  mankind  and  all  creat- 
ures,—  through  the  law  of  mutual  and  gradually 
lifting  service.  The  shepherding  function  is  no 
police  supervision  from  the  skies,  but  is  organized 
in  the  very  laws  and  forces  and  movements  of  nature 
and  humanity.  Hence  the  Eternal  shepherds  man 
in  a  higher  way  than  the  flocks  of  the  field  are 
shepherded,  man  being  more  largely  endowed 
with  the  function  of  being  a  providence  unto  him- 
self, adjusting  himself  to  his  changing  environment 
and  converting  his  very  trials  and  misfortunes  into 
spiritual  and  moral  wealth.  The  Eternal  Power, 
too,  is  creative  of  new  and  higher  wants  as  the 
creatures  ascend  in  organism  and  breadth  of  life; 
but  along  with  the  wants  goes  ample  provision  for 
their  supply.  "  Demand  and  supply "  is  one  of 
nature's  primal  laws.  Dr.  Holmes,  in  his  poem  of 
"The  Chambered  Nautilus,"  touches  both  the  ante- 
human  and  the  human  forms  of  this  organic  amel- 
ioration.     In  the  nautilus 

"  Year  after  year  beheld  the  silent  toil 
That  spread  his  lustrous  coil ; 
Still,  as  the  spiral  grew, 
He  left  the  past  year's  dwelling  for  the  new. 


THE  ETERNAL  OUR  SHEPHERD  4$ 

Stole  with  soft  step  its  shining  archway  through, 

Built  up  its  idle  door, 
Stretched  in  his  last-found  home  and  knew  the  old  no  more." 

But 

"  Build  thee  more  stately  mansions,  O  my  soul, 

As  the  swift  seasons  roll ! 

Leave  thy  low-vaulted  past ! 
Let  each  new  temple,  nobler  than  the  last, 
Shut  thee  from  heaven  with  a  dome  more  vast. 

Till  thou  at  length  art  free, 
Leaving  thine  outgrown  shell  by  life's  unresting  sea." 

So  to  this  mystic,  creative,  ameliorating  power 
of  the  Eternal  I  bow  in  reverence,  to  adhere  to  it 
and  work  with  it  in  trust  and  love.  It  comes  to 
me,  bending  under  a  past  eternity  of  accumulated 
wisdom  and  beneficence,  which  it  offers  to  me  for 
the  serving  and  refining  of  my  wants.  At  my  co- 
operating gesture  toward  it  flow  supplies  from  in- 
finite reservoirs.  I  know  that,  if  I  am  disloyal  to 
it  and  disregard  its  behests,  even  though  all  the 
wants  of  my  flesh  may  be  satisfied  and  I  may  be 
rich  in  many  things  called  wealth,  I  shall  yet  be 
poor  in  manhood  and  bereft  in  soul.  But  if  I 
loyally  follow  and  obey  it,  whatever  other  treasures 
and  pleasures  I  may  lose,  I  shall  be  possessed  of 
all  things  most  worthy  of  human  attainment.  In 
this  Power  Eternal  is  man's  highest  Friend,  his 
Shepherd,  his  King,  his  God. 


THE     TWENTY-THIRD     PSALM     IN     THE 
NINETEENTH  CENTURY. 

II. 

GREEN    PASTURES    AND    STILL   WATERS. 

"  He  maketh  me  to  lie  down  in  green  pastures ;   he  leadeth  me 
beside  the  still  waters." 

In  approaching  the  lesson  that  is  couched  in  this 
refined  luxury  of  poetic  words,  it  will  be  helpful  to 
bear  in  mind  certain  points  of  last  Sunday's  lecture 
on  the  Eternal  our  Shepherd.  The  first  two  verses 
of  the  Psalm  have  a  peculiarly  close  connection. 
The  writer  evidently  meant  to  intimate  how  im- 
possible it  is  that  the  Shepherd  should  allow  his 
flocks  to  suffer  want,  with  such  satiety  of  supply  at 
hand  in  meadow  and  stream  for  all  hunger  and 
thirst.  Hence,  lest  we  go  astray  with  the  idea 
that  the  Hebrew  poet  was  thinking  only  of  a  cos- 
seting Providence  that  should  shield  the  human 
race  from  all  possible  harms,  and  shelter  it  safe 
from  the  necessity  of  rugged  disciplines,  let  us 
recall  from  last  Sunday's  discussion  these  conclu- 
sions: — 

First,  the  Eternal  shepherds  mankind,  not  by 
miraculous  displays  of  sovereign  care,  but  through 


GREEN    PASTURES    AND    STILL    WATERS  A7 

• 

the  fact  that  the  Eternal  Power  is  organized  in  the 
ordinary  productive  forces  of  nature  and  in  the  nat- 
ural human  faculties.  The  Eternal,  indeed,  leads 
us,  but  does  it  through  the  inward  constraining 
force  of  reason  and  conscience,  and  the  sentiments 
of  affection,  honor,  and  benevolence.  Second,  the 
goal  of  this  leadership  is  attained  through  an  edu- 
cational process  whereby  human  life  is  gradually 
adjusted  to  the  great  world-energies.  This  process 
of  adjustment  means  that  the  Eternal  Power  which 
is  organized  in  man  as  mental  and  moral  perception 
and  as  rational  and  moral  motive  for  action,  places 
itself  in  vital  relationship  of  practical  concord  with 
the  Eternal  Power  that  is  organized  in  the  vast 
energies  of  the  universe  outside  of  man;  and  hence 
man  derives  for  his  finite  existence  and  purpose 
sustaining  supplies  from  that  infinite  bounty. 
Third,  the  conditions  of  this  educational  process 
of  adjustment  by  their  very  nature  do  not  admit 
that  man  shall  be  provided  for  by  a  fondling 
supreme  care,  without  effort  or  thought  of  his  own 
to  meet  his  wants;  but  rather  they  necessitate  the 
putting  forth  of  human  faculty  in  a  strenuous 
struggle  with  problems  of  difficulty,  in  order  to 
attain  the  higher  ends  and  satisfactions  of  human 
destiny.  Fourth,  in  this  educational  process  of 
adjustment,  moreover,  human  wants  themselves 
are  enlarged,  elevated,  and  spiritualized.  They 
emerge  from  material  wants  and  blossom  into  wants 
of  a  mental  and  moral  nature,  and  material  wants 
are  refined  from  their  merely  animal  grossness  and 


48  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

made  subordinate  to  nobler  demands  of  reason  and 
moral  risrht.  The  wants  of  a  tribe  of  Hottentot 
Indians  are  very  different  from  the  wants  of  any 
ordinary  community  of  citizens  in  Massachusetts. 
And  again,  the  wants  of  such  a  soul  as  Fenelon, 
or  Epictetus,  or  Emerson,  or  Elizabeth  Fry,  or 
Clara  Barton  are  not  only  far  removed  from  the 
wants  of  a  Congo  negro,  but  almost  as  far  removed 
from  the  dominant  wants  of  many  a  person  called 
civilized  and  who  may  live  in  the  luxury  of  riches 
at  the  very  acme  of  modern  civilization,  yet  who 
lives  chiefly  for  gratifying  the  propensity  of  covet- 
ousness  and  the  passions  of  the  flesh.  It  does  not 
follow,  therefore,  because  all  our  actual  wants  may 
appear  to  be  satisfied,  that  it  is  the  Eternal  who  is 
always  leading  us  to  their  gratification.  We  may 
be  under  the  lead  of  merely  temporal  desires  and 
appetites.  Man  is  subject  to  diseased,  abnormal, 
and  rebellious  wants,  which  actually  work  against 
the  Eternal  purpose;  and  he  is  only  led  away  from 
them  to  higher  satisfactions,  through  disciplines 
of  pain  and  retribution. 

These  points  were  all  stated  or  implied  in  the 
previous  lecture,  and  they  have  a  direct  bearing  on 
our  thought  to-day. 

For  what  kind  of  wants  or  satisfactions  did 
the  Hebrew  poet  mean  to  symbolize  under  the  pict- 
ure of  nature's  luxuriance  of  green  pastures  and 
still  waters?  Plainly  here  was  something  more 
than  merely  feeding  and  drinking,  something  be- 
yond the  bare  necessities  of  existence,  a  sugges- 


GREEN    PASTURES    AND    STILL    WATERS  49 

tion  of  other  than  physical  hungers  and  thirst   to 
be  satisfied, —  a  suggestion  of   ideal  wants  as  well 
as  the  gratification   of    actual    wants.     The  green 
pastures  and  still  waters  are  beyond  all  the  needs 
of  present  hungers  and  thirsts.      The  flocks  are  to 
lie  down  in  the  midst  of  this  beautiful,  bountiful 
greenness;    and    the    Hebrew    phrase    for     "still 
waters "    is   rendered,   by  one   of    the   most    literal 
translators,     into     "well-watered     resting-places." 
The    Hebrew   phrase    does,    indeed,   carry  a    finer, 
fuller  idea  even  than  that   of    "still  waters."     It 
means   "waters  of  restful   quietness."     The  eager 
appetites  of  the  flocks  are  depicted  as  already  ap- 
peased.    The  scramble  for  food   is  over.      The  tir- 
ing, dusty,  hot  journey  to  the  pastures  has  had  its 
reward.     The  flocks  can  now  rest  at  ease  on  the  lap 
of   Nature's  bounty.     The  grass  from  which  they 
have  fed  offers  a  bed  deliciously  soft  and  fragrant. 
The  air  they  breathe   is  sweet  with  the  breath  of 
the  still  waters,  and  invites  their  senses  to  repose. 
With  such  abundance  close  at  hand,  they  can  have 
no  anxieties  for  the  future.     The  Shepherd  has  led 
them  to  the  very  sources  of  Nature's  plenty,  and 
they  are  at  peace. 

But  now  consider  for  a  moment  the  times  and 
circumstances  under  which  the  Hebrew  poet  wrote 
this  pastoral  verse,  and  the  purpose  he  had  at  heart. 
Of  course,  we  understand  that  he  was  not  merely 
indicting  a  pretty  poem  of  nature.  He  had  an- 
other flock  in  mind  and  other  pastures  in  vision 
than  any  he  saw  among  the  sheep  and  hills  of  Pal- 


50  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

estine.  To  him  Israel  was  the  flock  and  Jehovah 
the  Shepherd.  And,  whenever  this  serene  poem 
was  written,  it  could  never  have  been  written  at  a 
time  when  Israel  had  found  all  its  wants  and  long- 
ings satisfied  and  was  at  peace.  For  Israel  nev'er 
came  to  such  a  time.  Its  land  of  promise,  flowing 
with  milk  and  honey,  was  always  just  before  it. 
It  journeyed  toward  that  promise,  struggled  for  it, 
prayed  for  it,  fought  for  it,  was  sometimes  just  on 
the  verge  of  securing  it;  but  Israel  never  passed 
over  the  inexorable  boundary  which  separated  from 
it.  The  promised  land  was  an  ideal  country, — 
always  in  promises,  not  in  fulfilment.  Yet  the 
devout  Hebrew  did  not  cease  to  believe  in  it. 
Though  far  away  from  it,  he  saw  it  at  hand. 
Though  enemies  resisted  his  advance,  he  saw  them 
overcome.  Though  his  people  were  in  captivity, 
he  saw  them  free  and  going  forth  to  conquer  and 
possess.  And  the  Hebrew  poets  and  preachers 
never  ceased  to  appeal  to  and  uphold  this  sublime, 
transcendent  faith.  To  keep  the  faith  was  to  help 
toward  the  fulfilment  of  the  promise, —  was,  in- 
deed, to  insure  it.  Hence,  while  their  national 
wants  were  still  unsatisfied  and  they  were  in  the 
midst  of  innumerable  troubles,  they  pictured  in 
perfect  confidence  the  serenity  and  prosperity 
which  would  surely  come,  if  Israel  would  but  faith- 
fully follow  Jehovah's  guidance  and  law.  That 
outward  serenity  and  prosperity,  which  they  saw  in 
prophetic  vision  as  the  fruit  of  faithfulness,  already 
seemed  to    have  settled    inwardly  upon   the   souls 


GREEN    PASTURES    AND    STILL   WATERS  5  I 

of  seer  and  poet,  so  that  they  spoke  out  of  a  spirit- 
ual calmness  which  could  not  have  been  suggested 
by  their  present  surroundings.  Hence,  our  Psalm- 
ist saw  the  green  pastures  and  restful  waters 
which  were  before  Israel  as  if  close  at  hand,  and 
he  wrote  as  if  he  already  breathed  their  atmosphere 
of  ineffable  peace.  "As  if"  do  I  say?  Nay,  he 
did.  For  to  souls  such  as  his,  that  live  in  a 
spiritual  atmosphere  of  faith  and  courage  and  hope, 
time  and  distance  are  elements  which  do  not  count. 
For  Israel  as  a  people,  the  green  pastures  and  still 
waters  may  have  yet  been  far  away,  with  many 
troubled  years  between.  But  he  who  wrote  "The 
Lord  my  Shepherd "  had  found  them.  Though 
troubles  raged  around  him,  his  spirit  rested  in 
trust  on  the  calm,  bountiful  bosom  of  the  Eternal, 
and  shared  the  eternal  strength  and  repose. 

And  now  let  us  ask  what  meaning  this  particular 
verse  of  the  Psalm  can  have  for  us  in  this  rational- 
istic age  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Has  the  Ori- 
ental picture  of  the  Eternal  as  a  good  Shepherd, 
leading  mankind  into  green  pastures  and  beside 
still  waters  and  leading  them  beyond  the  bare 
needs  of  existence,  no  power  to  touch  our  hearts 
nor  to  stir  within  us  any  feeling  of  its  truthful- 
ness? Are  we  of  this  prosaic  era, —  an  era  of  bust- 
ling material  energies  and  enterprises, —  when 
gifted  minds  are  not  poetizing  so  much  about  the 
universe  as  philosophizing  about  it,  and  when  the 
philosophies  and  theologies  do  not  begin  so  much 
as  once  they  did  with  a  priori  assumptions  about 


52  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

the  perfect  attributes  of  an  infinitely  perfect  Being, 
but  begin  with  observing  the  hard,  bare  facts  of 
nature  and  of  human  life, —  are  we  losing  our  sen- 
sitiveness for  such  an  idyllic  picture  of  universal 
harmony  and  peace?  Science  has,  indeed,  told  us 
of  the  facts  of  an  animal  ancestry  for  mankind, 
of  savagery  in  which  human  history  everywhere 
begins,  and  of  the  animal  propensities  and  habits 
still  adhering  by  the  iron  links  of  hereditary  law  to 
our  most  advanced  civilization;  and  only  our  own 
observation  is  needed  to  tell  us  of  the  wickedness 
and  woe  everywhere  prevalent, —  the  bitter,  killing 
toil,  often  for  the  poorest  necessities,  the  gaunt 
poverty,  the  deadly  famines  and  diseases,  the  fre- 
quent hardships  of  innocent  souls,  the  cruel  covet- 
ousness  of  mean  and  grasping  souls,  the  stories  of 
brutal  crime  which,  reeking  with  blood  and  filth, 
the  news-gatherers  bring  daily  to  our  doors.  Are 
we,  I  ask,  so  crowded  and  pressed  by  such  facts  as 
these  close  at  hand  that  our  minds  are  utterly  un- 
impressible  by  any  of  the  higher  and  more  compre- 
hensive facts  of  nature  and  of  human  life,  which 
the  Psalmist  painted  in  those  phrases,  in  them- 
selves so  beautiful,  "the  green  pastures  and  the  still 
waters "  ?  Have  we  become  such  pessimists  that 
we  no  longer  see  truth  nor  beauty  in  these  words? 
Or,  if  we  still  see  in  them  a  certain  artistic  beauty 
of  form,  is  the  poetic  sentiment  but  a  bitter  mockery 
for  us,  in  view  of  the  cruel  facts  of  existence? 

Even  while  my  brain  was  busy,  on  an  April  day, 
with  these  sentences,   I   looked  from   my  window, 


GREEN    PASTURES    AND    STILL    WATERS  53 

and  beheld  there  before  me,  on  the  tender  spring 
grass,  two  sparrows  in  terrific  battle,  one  of  them 
picking  the  very  life-blood  from  the  other's  breast. 
And,  as  I  looked,  I  thought  of  the  tender,  trustful 
words  of  Jesus:  "One  of  them  shall  not  fall  on  the 
ground  without  your  Father."  What  do  those 
words  mean,  with  that  fact  of  bloody  sparrow- 
slaughter  before  my  eyes?  Yet  that  battle  of  the 
sparrows  is  but  the  most  insignificant  fraction  of 
the  great  battle  for  conquest  by  blood  that  is  going 
on  in  the  world  of  nature,  and  that  from  time  im- 
memorial has  been  going  on,  and  is  still  going  on 
we  must  say,  among  men.  What  mean  these  terri- 
ble facts  of  conflict,  battle,  and  blood,  which  seam 
with  their  horror  all  the  strata  of  natural  and 
human  history?  With  our  eyes  holden  by  these 
horrors,  can  we  anywhere  descry  the  still  waters 
and  green  pastures  of  the  Psalmist's  vision?  Yet, 
as  I  watched  the  battle  of  the  sparrows,  I  noted 
also  the  upspringing  grass  newly  carpeting  the 
earth  with  its  beautiful  green,  and  above  the  war- 
ring birds  the  tree-buds  pushing  out  their  colors; 
and  I  saw  the  crocuses  in  brave  blossom  where 
snow  was  lately  banked,  and  all  the  miracle  around 
me  of  the  new  spring-time;  and  I  looked  up  to  the 
sky's  inimitable  blue,  arched  over  all,  and  to  the 
white  cloud-ships  sailing  across  that  upper  main: 
and  then  my  soul  said  to  itself  that,  despite  the 
ugly  seams  in  its  structure,  this  is  a  beautiful 
world,  and  despite  the  moral  horrors  the  moral 
beauty  overarches  and   overpowers   them. 


54  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

The  Hebrew  had  to  encounter  the  ugly  and  bitter 
facts  of  the  same  depressing  nature  as  those  which 
confront  us  to-day.  Yet  through  them  he  caught 
glimpses  of  green  pastures  and  still  waters, — 
glimpses  of  an  ideal  destination  toward  which  the 
Eternal  was  leading  his  people  and  against  which 
no  facts  of  present  hardship  would  be  able  to  pre- 
vail. The  sublime  interpretation  which  he  thus 
gave  to  present  facts  was  impervious  to  criticism. 
His  faith  rose  above  the  facts,  so  that  he  seemed 
to  ignore  them.  He  believed  that  the  Eternal  was 
leading  him;  and  would  not  he  do  all  things 
well,  and  ultimately  make  the  very  enemies  of 
Israel  to  praise  him?  Of  course,  our  modern  lo- 
gician will  say  that  the  Hebrew  here  begged  the 
very  question  at  issue.  And,  regarding  merely  the 
small  segment  of  human  experience  which  he  had 
in  view,  he  did  beg  the  question.  The  enemies  of 
Israel  as  a  nation  were  not  conquered.  Nationally 
Israel  fell,  fell  pierced  to  death  by  its  stronger 
neighbors,  fell  as  the  sparrow  fell  stabbed  by  its 
angered  comrade.  As  a  nation,  Israel  was  not  led 
into  the  green  pastures  and  by  the  still  waters  of 
its  promised  land.  And  yet,  when  these  questions 
are  put  to-day,  What  do  these  hard  facts  mean, — 
the  cruel  conflicts,  the  disappointments,  the  hard- 
ships and  poverties,  the  bloody  horrors,  the  spar- 
row's fall,  the  nation's  overthrow,  the  crucifixion 
of  Jesus  by  his  own  national  kindred,  the  pressure 
of  the  poison  to  Socrates' s  lips  by  the  hand  of  cul- 
tivated,   classic    Greece?  I    aver   that    enlightened 


GREEN    PASTURES    AND    STILL    WATERS  55 

reason  to-day  is  in  a  better  condition  than  Hebrew 
or  Christian  theology  has  ever  been  to  overbalance 
all  these  dark  facts  of  existence  with  brighter, 
larger,  and  higher  facts,  and  to  give  to  all  life's 
facts  a  rational  and  ethical  interpretation. 

Science,  with  its  doctrine  of  evolution,  has 
given  us  the  clew.  The  universe  is  a  school  of 
education,  which  has  the  Eternal  for  its  leader  and 
master,  and  eternity  for  its  course.  The  Eternal 
Power  is  thus,  through  the  new  science,  revealing 
its  purposes  in  a  grander  scheme  to  sublimer  ends 
than  the  Hebrews  ever  conceived  or  dreamed  of 
in  their  dream  of  national  glory.  It  is  an  ascend- 
ing process  and  progress,  leading  on  from  one  ame- 
lioration to  another,  all  the  way  from  the  clay 
and  the  atom  and  the  primal  force  to  the  intelli- 
gent consciousness  of  man,  which  enacts  rectitude 
into  laws  and  customs,  creates  States,  and  controls 
brute  passions  by  reason  and  love.  The  brief  suf- 
fering of  a  sparrow  in  its  fall,  the  violent  death  of 
a  man,  the  calamity  of  a  nation,  are  throes  incident 
to  these  higher  births.  Nor,  in  viewing  this  evo- 
lutionary process  and  progress  from  the  point  of 
view  of  science,  are  we  burdened  with  the  ques- 
tions which  have  always  embarrassed  the  theolo- 
gians in  debating  the  problem  of  evil,  "Why  does 
not  the  Eternal,  All-wise,  and  All-benevolent  Om- 
nipotence prevent  this,  and  do  that?"  It  is  ours 
only  to  note  what  the  Eternal  is  doing,  and  to  ad- 
just our  own  lives  thereto;  to  discover  to  what  end 
and  by  what  method  the  Eternal  is  moving  and  to 
make  that  our  aim  and  way. 


56  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

That  with  respect  to  man  the  movement  is  on- 
ward and  upward  there  is  no  reason  nor  science 
that  can  doubt.  The  history  of  the  ages  is  proof 
that  man  is  slowly  led,  by  the  constraining  power 
within  him  uniting  with  the  power  without,  away 
from  brutal  degradations  and  childish  errors  toward 
greatening  realms  of  wisdom  and  right,  and  toward 
corresponding  experiences  of  felicity  and  peace. 

Human  adjustment  to  the  Divine  or  Eternal 
Power, —  that  is  always  the  one  dominant  duty. 
Whatever  our  surroundings,  whatever  the  events 
that  befall  us,  in  whatever  form  the  Eternal  may 
here  and  now  touch  our  dwellings,  our  lives,  the 
primary  question  is,  How  shall  we  adjust  ourselves 
to  the  Power  so  as  to  draw  into  ourselves  somewhat 
of  its  strength,  wealth  of  resource,  and  felicity? 
The  Power  is  abundant,  over  and  above  all  human 
needs:  can  we  not  connect  with  it  so  as  not  merely 
to  find  all  our  necessities  supplied,  but  to  feel  also 
a  sense  of  the  supplying,  creative,  nourishing  en- 
ergy around  us  in  such  luxuriant  bounty  that  we 
can  have  no  longer  present  ailing,  nor  fear  for  the 
future,  nor  any  sense  of  estrangement  from,  but 
only  vital  unity  with,  the  very  sources  of  Life  and 
Well-being  and  wholesome  Joy? 

Consider  even  the  lowest  plane  of  life, —  that 
of  physical  sustenance.  "The  green  pastures  and 
still  waters  "  represent  that  provision  for  human 
wants  which  looks  beyond  to-day's  boundary  of 
meagre  necessities.  They  may  symbolize  for  us 
nature's  fertile  resources  for  meeting   man's  pro- 


GREEN    PASTURES    AND    STILL    WATERS  5/ 

gressive  wants.  Whatever  man  himself  can  save 
from  the  product  of  to-day's  toil,  beyond  the  day's 
needs,  for  the  morrow's  or  the  next  week's  uses, 
that  helps  to  emancipate  him  from  the  mere  drudg- 
eries of  toil  and  opens  opportunities  for  the  supply 
of  higher  needs.  It  may  be  safely  asserted  that, 
even  with  the  world  as  it  is,  nature's  capacities  for 
furnishing  sustenance  to  mankind,  responding  to 
man's  labor,  would  be  more  than  sufficient  to  feed 
all  the  millions  of  mankind  on  the  earth  every 
year.  Even  now,  with  a  more  skilful  adjustment 
of  intelligence  to  improved  methods  of  cultivating 
the  soil  and  distributing  its  products  and  for  pre- 
venting waste,  there  need  nowhere  at  any  time  be 
starvation  nor  hunger.  But  by  and  by  irrigation 
may  convert  the  most  desolate  deserts  into  gardens 
and  laugh  at  years  of  drought  and  famine.  Last 
winter,  in  California,  I  saw  vast  districts  of  dale 
and  hill,  which  three  years  before  had  been  as 
barren  of  vegetation  as  Sahara,  covered  now  with 
every  variety  of  shrub  and  blossom,  with  grass  and 
with  groves  of  young  orange  and  olive  trees,  and 
with  forest  shade  trees  thirty  feet  high  and  more, 
which  had  grown  in  that  time  from  small  twigs. 
Irrigation  had  done  it  all.  The  nutritive  elements 
were  waiting  there  unused  in  the  soil,  and  there 
was  the  snow  in  sight  on  the  mountains.  And 
human  skill  had  married  the  snow  and  the  soil 
together,  and  hence  all  this  fruitfulness  and 
beauty.  The  great  San  Joaquin  valley,  once  al- 
most a  desert  from  the  Sierra  Nevada  to  the  Coast 


58  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

Range  of  mountains,  now  by  the  same  means 
teems  with  towns  and  cities,  with  vineyards  and 
orchards  and  fields  of  grain,  bearing  wheat  and 
fruit  ample  for  millions  of  people.  Thus  by  im- 
proved modes  of  agriculture  man  literally  creates 
for  himself  green  pastures,  and  waters  which  shall 
be  still  or  shall  flow  at  his  pleasure;  and  thus  he 
produces  food  in  excess  of  the  day's  needs,  and  can 
turn  his  faculties  to  other  achievements. 

Man's  progress  in  civilization  and  in  the  refining 
arts  of  life  depends,  for  one  of  its  essential  condi- 
tions, on  the  surplus  he  is  able  to  save  from  sup- 
plying the  mere  necessities  of  physical  existence. 
This  is  true  of  nations  and  of  individuals.  The 
first-earned  surplus  above  actual  wants  of  the  body 
is  the  opening  gateway  to  the  green  pastures  and 
still  waters  of  life.  As  soon  as  that  saved  surplus 
can  begin  and  the  saving  is  persistently  followed, 
whether  it  be  a  saving  of  material  earnings  or  of 
time  from  physical  toil,  the  road  is  entered  that 
leads  to  better  education,  enlightenment,  culture, 
to  refinement  of  manners  and  the  creation  of  the 
tastes  which  demand  nobler  than  physical  suste- 
nance and  pleasures.  That  saved  surplus  above 
daily  uses  or  wastes  is  the  seed  of  all  these  men- 
tally nutritious  and  pleasant  pastures,  the  foun- 
tain whence  started  the  rills  that  have  gathered  in 
these  inward  waters  refreshing  to  mind  and  heart. 
A  dime  or  half-dime  saved  each  week  might  mean 
a  picture  on  the  wall  of  the  home,  plants  in  the 
window,  a   plat   of  grass   and   flowers  in  the  yard; 


GREEN    PASTURES    AND    STILL    WATERS  59 

and  these  all  have  their  civilizing  influence.  A 
dime  or  half-dime  saved  each  day  may  mean  a  few 
books,  a  good  newspaper,  a  brighter  smile  on  the 
face  of  the  wife,  better  clothed  and  happier  chil- 
dren. The  more  dimes  and  nickels  saved  and  put  to 
such  uses,  the  more  rapidly  will  the  green  pastures 
and  still  waters  come,  to  ornament  life's  hard  ne- 
cessities and  relieve  its  toils.  Yet  there  is  many  a 
husband  and  father — sometimes,  alas,  even  a  wife 
and  mother  —  who  drinks  up  his  green  pastures  by 
spending  the  dimes  and  half-dimes  for  liquids  that 
intoxicate.  Philanthropy  can  do  no  better  thing 
for  the  laboring  poor  who  depend  for  their  bread  on 
their  daily  toil  than  to  show  them  how,  by  saving 
a  little  money  above  their  needs  each  week,  they 
can  throw  around  their  toilsome,  arid  lives  an  at- 
mosphere of  comfort  and  even  of  a  refining  luxury, 
of  which  no  one  can  rob  them. 

And,  again,  there  is  the  ornament  of  a  trustful 
and  quiet  spirit,  exhibited  in  certain  characters, 
which  carries  in  itself  all  the  blessedness  of  the 
best  kind  of  outward  possessions.  Such  persons 
may  be  poor  in  worldly  goods,  they  may  be  forced 
to  painful  toils,  their  homes  may  have  little  of  ma- 
terial beauty;  but  they  have  so  adjusted  themselves 
morally  and  spiritually  to  life's  trials  and  duties 
that  the  green  pastures  and  still  waters  appear  in 
their  souls.  The  beauty  which  graces  their  homes 
is  that  of  their  own  holiness,  the  nutriment  they 
offer  is  that  of  the  spirit.  You  feel  in  their  pres- 
ence the  refreshing,  assuring  atmosphere  of  open 


60  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

spaces  and  clear  skies.  They  keep  their  serenity- 
unmoved  by  life's  changes,  their  trust  undisturbed 
by  its  trials.  They  are  not  merely  led  by  the 
Eternal,  but  they  have  within  them  the  stability 
and  life  and  repose  of  the  Eternal.  Mr.  Wasson's 
fine  poem,  "All's  Well,"  written  from  a  bed  of 
broken  health  and  pain  and  threatening  poverty, 
voices  the  feelings  of  those  who  have  thus  found 
their  green  pastures  and  still  waters  in  the  realm 
of  mental  and  spiritual   possessions. 

"  Sweet-voiced  Hope,  thy  fine  discourse 
Foretold  not  half  life's  good  to  me ; 
Thy  painter,  Fancy,  hath  not  force 
To  show  how  sweet  it  is  to  be  ! 
Thy  witching  dream 
And  pictured  sclieme 
To  match  the  fact  still  want  the  power ; 
Thy  promise  brave 
From  birth  to  grave 
Life's  boon  may  beggar  in  an  hour. 

"  O  wealth  of  life  beyond  all  bound  ! 
Eternity  each  moment  given  ! 
What  plummet  may  the  Present  sound? 
Who  promises  a  future  heaven  ? 
Or  glad,  or  grieved. 
Oppressed,  relieved. 
In  blackest  night  or  brightest  day, 
Still  pours  the  flood 
Of  golden  good, 
And  more  than  heart-full  fills  me  aye. 

"  I  have  a  stake  in  every  star, 

In  every  beam  that  fills  the  day; 
All  hearts  of  men  my  coffers  are. 
My  ores  arterial  tides  convey ; 


GREEN    PASTURES    AND    STILL    WATERS  6l 

The  fields,  the  skies, 

The  sweet  replies 
Of  thought  to  thought  are  my  gold-dust; 

The  oaks,  the  brooks. 

And  speaking  looks 
Of  lovers'  faith  and  friendship's  trust. 

«  Life's  youngest  tides  joy-brimming  flow 
For  him  wlao  lives  above  all  years, 
Who  all-immortal  makes  the  Now, 
And  is  not  ta'en  in  Time's  arrears ; 
His  life's  a  hymn 
The  seraphim 
Might  hark  to  hear  or  help  to  sing; 
And  to  his  soul 
The  boundless  whole 
Its  bounty  all  doth  daily  bring." 

But  even  where  there  is  less  of  spiritual  experi- 
ence and  of  moral  wealth  than  this  exquisite  lyric 
voices,  considering,  for  instance,  quite  ordinary 
routines  of  life's  ties,  toils,  and  duties,  there  is 
always  ample  provision,  if  we  will  but  seek  and 
accept  it,  for  a  softening  fringe  around  them  of 
grace  and  beauty,  which  may  be  compared  to  the 
green  pastures  and  still  waters  lying  beyond  the 
naked  necessities  of  existence.  A  happy  marriage 
and  home, —  what  refreshment  and  added  vitality 
do  they  give  to  the  treadmill  routines  of  labor  and 
duty!  Friendship,  good  books,  the  beautiful  in 
nature  and  art  and  the  love  that  may  be  cultivated 
for  the  beautiful,  and  the  stimulus  and  delight  of 
intellectual  companionship, —  these  all  make  a  rich 
part    of    life's    needful    luxuries.     Man    can    exist 


62  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

without  them,  can  exist  and  work  and  have  all 
physical  wants  as  a  breathing  animal  gratified. 
But  without  them  he  cannot  live  according  to  the 
full  breadth  and  wealth  of  the  normal  measure  of 
manhood.  So,  too,  duty  may  be  gracefully  clothed 
beyond  the  legal  requirement  of  the  commandment. 
The  same  kind  of  duty  may  be  done  —  is  done  — 
by  different  persons  so  as  to  produce  very  different 
effects.  Let  it  be,  for  instance,  a  needed  moral 
rebuke  to  another  or  an  act  of  charity.  One  per- 
son will  do  it  with  such  rigidness  of  law  and 
frigidity  of  manner  as  to  irritate  and  arouse  resist- 
ance. Another  may  do  the  same  action  with  such 
graciousness  of  spirit  as  to  make  the  recipient  feel 
all  the  breadth  and  sweetness  of  Nature's  bounty. 

But,  whatever  possessions  we  may  hold  in  this 
broader  and  higher  domain  of  life  beyond  the 
bound  of  life's  primary  needs,  there  is  yet  always 
a  vision  of  finer  fields  and  purer  waters  still  before 
us.  There  is  no  attainment  that  seems  perma- 
nently to  satisfy  as  if  it  were  the  end.  The  Eter- 
nal ever  leadeth  us  on  to  some  further  goal. 
Nourished  in  the  green  pastures,  refreshed  by  the 
still  waters,  we  are  strengthened  for  another  jour- 
ney and  prepared  for  nobler  tasks.  "  Sweet-voiced 
Hope"  is  the  enticer.  The  young  man's  or  the 
young  woman's  toil  to-day  over  books  or  music  or 
accounts,  or  at  some  necessitated  or  chosen  task  of 
the  hands,  might  become  a  wearing,  degrading 
drudgery  indeed,  did  not  hope  light  up  the  future 
with   some  finer  achievement   as  the  result.     The 


GREEN    PASTURES    AND    STILL    WATERS  63 

highest  ideals  of  character,  the  highest  ideals  of 
society,  —  these  are  still  disembodied.  They  in- 
vite us  onward  to  give  them  body  and  power. 
With  social  weals  the  age  is  alive.  Impracticable, 
fantastic,  impossible,  many  of  them  may  be;  but 
beneath  them  is  a  divine  discontent,  because  of 
present  wants  inequitably  satisfied  and  of  higher 
wants  struggling  for  birth,  a  divine  discontent 
which  calls  for  a  new  adjustment  of  social  rights 
and  duties.  So  much  of  human  vitality,  on  one 
side,  is  spent  perforce  in  the  mere  labor  of  keeping 
soul  and  body  together,  and  so  much,  on  the  other 
side,  is  wasted  in  needless  and  enervating  luxuries, 
that  the  refreshing  pastures  and  restful  waters  of 
social  life  are  hardly  yet  in  sight.  Still,  there  is 
good  reason  from  past  experience  for  the  faith  that 
present  iniquities  will  gradually  be  removed,  jus- 
tice be  done  between  man  and  man,  labor  and  capi- 
tal join  hands  in  friendship,  and,  in  some  happier 
century  to  come,  righteousness  and  peace  kiss 
each  other. 

I  know  that  the  fulfilment  of  this  great  hope  is 
commonly  adjourned  to  another  world.  The  Chris- 
tian Church  especially,  apparently  despairing  of 
ever  finding  the  green  pastures  and  still  waters  on 
earth,  has  put  them  among  the  promised  pleasures 
of  the  redeemed  in  heaven.  This  world  it  has  de- 
scribed as  mainly  given  over  to  the  wiles  and  woes 
of  evil,  as  a  vale  of  tears  and  griefs:  only  in  the 
world  to  come  could  the  hope  for  happiness  and 
peace  find   its  fruition.      But   it   has  not  been  my 


64  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

purpose  to  follow  this  teaching  of  ecclesiastical 
Christianity.  Rather  have  I  aimed  to  keep  with 
the  Hebrew,  who  believed  that  this  world  was  not 
so  bad  that  it  could  not  be  redeemed,  and  that  its 
utmost  desolations  could  be  made  to  rejoice,  and 
blossom  as  the  rose.  I  have  sought  to  show  how 
even  here,  along  the  dusty,  toilsome,  and  often 
sorrowful  ways  of  earthly  life,  the  Eternal  has 
brought  the  green  pastures  and  still  waters  close 
to  our  reach;  aye,  how  he  has  caused  them  also 
to  spring  up  in  human  souls  themselves,  ample 
with  an  inward  bounty  and  beauty  of  spirit  to  com- 
pensate for  outward  trials  and  wants.  The  He- 
brew believed  in  a  Deity  omnipotent  for  good  on 
earth,  but  did  not  give  time  enough  for  the  accom- 
plishment. This  thought  allows  all  time  for  the 
grand  consummation,  which,  through  man's  own 
help,  shall  show  earth's  deserts  converted  into 
gardens  and  its  hells  into  rooms  of  heaven. 


THE   TWENTY-THIRD   PSALM    IN   THE 
NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 


III. 


PATHS    OF    SAFETY. 

"  He  restoreth  my  soul :  he  leadeth  me  in  the  paths  of  righteous- 
ness for  his  name's  sake. 

In  this  verse  of  the  Twenty-third  Psalm,  the 
revised  version  ventures  a  single  change  from  the 
King  James  translation.  It  substitutes  the  word 
"guideth"  for  "leadeth."  The  euphony  is  thereby 
somewhat  improved,  since  we  have  the  word 
"leadeth"  in  the  preceding  verse;  and  the  sense  is 
in  no  way  altered.  The  original  Hebrew,  more- 
over, has  two  different  words,  and  hence  on  this 
point  the  revised  version  is  the  more  exact;  while 
the  change  from  the  common  version  is  so  slight 
that  an  ordinary  reader,  even  though  familiar  with 
the  old  form  of  words,  would  hardly  notice  the 
variation.  And  this,  I  may  say  in  passing,  illus- 
trates one  of  the  rules  which  appears  to  have  been 
followed  by  the  authors  of  the  new  translation; 
namely,  to  be  faithful  to  truth  in  the  rendering 
unless  old  and  devout  associations  were  to  be  too 
rudely  shocked,  but,  when  these  were  likely  to  be 


66  THE   TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

thus  shocked,  then  exactness  of  truth  must  yield  to 
the  devout  associations,  even  though  the  original 
utterance  be  believed  to  be  a  miraculous  revelation 
of  the  perfect  truth.  But  in  this  verse  the  revisers 
might  have  made  still  greater  changes  in  the  in- 
terest of  exactness,  and  have  thereby  still  further 
improved  the  poetic  diction.  Following  in  the 
main  the  version  of  Dr.  Noyes,  we  should  then 
have  this  rendering  of  the  verse  which  is  to  occupy 
our  attention  this  morning:  "He  reviveth  my  soul; 
he  guideth  me  in  paths  of  safety  for  his  name's 
sake."  You  will  note  that  the  phrase  "paths  of 
safety,"  which  the  Hebrew  allows,  is  in  finer 
keeping  with  the  metaphor  of  the  Shepherd  leading 
his  flock  than  is  the  common  version  "paths  of 
righteousness."  And  yet,  as  we  shall  see  later, 
the  final  idea  is  not  essentially  different. 

The  meaning  of  the  first  clause,  "He  reviveth 
my  soul"  (or  "restoreth,"  as  the  King  James  ver- 
sion has  it)  is  that  the  Shepherd  takes  means  to 
impart  new  life  to  the  flock  or  to  refresh  their 
spirits,  after  fatiguing  journeys,  for  instance,  or 
hard  pasturage,  or  exhaustion  from  heat.  The 
effect  of  the  resting  in  green  pastures  and  beside 
the  still  waters  is  gathered  up  designedly  by  the 
poet  in  these  first  words  of  the  subsequent  verse, 
"  He  reviveth  my  soul  " ;  and  then  a  still  further 
idea  is  added  to  the  same  thought  in  the  suggestion 
of  the  Shepherd  guiding  his  refreshed  and  rein- 
vigorated  flock  onward   in    "paths  of  safety." 

And  this   is  a  good  place  to  call  attention  to  a 


PATHS    OF    SAFETY  6/ 

unique  feature  which  often  appears  in  the  rhyth- 
mical structure  of  Hebrew  poetry.  It  is  called 
"rhythm  by  gradation."  The  Psalms  thus  con- 
structed are  entitled  "Psalms  of  Degrees,"  or 
"Steps."  Perhaps  they  were  originally  used  as 
chants  in  solemn  processions.  And  their  pecul- 
iarity is  that  "the  thought  or  expression  of  a 
preceding  verse  is  resumed  and  carried  forward  in 
the  next."  One  of  the  best  illustrations  where  it 
is  simply  the  resumption  and  enlargement  of  the 
expression  is  the  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-first 
Psalm : — 

"  I  will  lift  up  mine  eyes  to  the  hills, 
Whence  cometh  my  help  ; 
My  help  cometh  from  the  Eternal, 
Who  made  heaven  and  earth,"  etc. 

And  the  Twenty-third  Psalm  presents  a  fine  ex- 
ample of  the  resumption  of  the  thought  rather  than 
the  verbal  form, —  the  resumption  of  the  thought, 
with  enlargement  and  heightening  from  verse  to 
verse,  from  the  first  sentence,  "The  Eternal  is  my 
Shepherd,"  to  the  climax  of  the  last  words,  "And 
I  shall  dwell  in  the  house  of  the  Eternal  forever." 
Sometimes  the  relation  between  the  verses  is  not  so 
much  a  resumption  of  the  thought  as  suggestion  of 
thought.  The  "I  shall  not  want  "  of  the  first  verse 
suggests  the  abundance  and  refreshment  of  the 
"green  pastures  and  still  waters"  of  the  second 
verse;  and  this  bounty  of  grass  and  of  "waters 
of    restful    quietness "  suggests  the  refreshed    and 


68  THE   TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

quickened  life  and  its  continual  guidance  in  safe 
paths  beyond  both  want  and  harm.  In  the  next 
verse,  again,  the  safe  paths  extend  even  into  the 
valley  of  deathly  shadows.  Bearing  in  mind  this 
peculiarity  of  structure,  we  are  helped  to  a  clearer 
perception  of  the  delicate  shadings  and  blendings 
of  the  thought  as  well  as  of  the  beauty  of  the  poet- 
ical form. 

Let  us  now  return  from  this  digression,  explana- 
tory of  the  peculiar  connecting  links  between  the 
verses  of  the  Psalm  as  a  whole,  to  the  more  special 
theme  contained  in  this  third  verse.  And  our  first 
inquiry  is,  What  was  the  thought  in  the  Hebrew 
poet's  own  mind,  which  he  clothed  in  the  poetic 
language  of  this  verse?  Possibly  it  may  have 
occurred  to  some  of  you  that,  in  the  substitution  of 
the  phrase  "  paths  of  safety  "  for  "  paths  of  right- 
eousness," the  one  most  conspicuous  ethical  element 
of  the  Psalm  has  been  swept  away.  But  not  so. 
The  Hebrew  word  {Tsaroq)  is  capable  of  both 
renderings.  It  is  a  word  rich  in  varied  meanings, 
yet  all  of  them  branching  from  one  root-thought. 
The  primitive  significance  of  the  word  as  applied 
to  physical  things  (and  in  that  usage  the  word 
originated)  is  straightness,  evenness.  It  was  spe- 
cially applied  to  straightness  and  evenness  of 
paths,  as  opposed  to  crookedness,  roughness,  and 
deviousness.  It  meant  Tightness  and  fitness  of 
physical  things  with  one  another.  Hence,  and 
still  on  a  physical  plane,  it  meant  safety,  felic- 
ity,  deliverance  from  difficult  places.      But,   with 


PATHS    OF    SAFETY  69 

the  intellectual  development  of  the  Hebrew  people, 
the  same  word  came  to  be  applied  to  mental  and 
moral  attributes.  It  became  one  of  their  greatest 
words.  It  then  meant  mental  and  moral  straight- 
ness,  uprightness,  integrity,  justice,  righteous- 
ness, which  would  bring  national  deliverance  from 
difficulties,  bring  national  felicity  and  prosperity 
and  salvation.  The  Hebrews  had  other  words  for 
some  of  these  ideas;  but  the  ideas  to  them  were  so 
mutually  related  and  dependent  that  they  came  to 
use  the  words  interchangeably.  The  straight  paths 
of  righteousness  were  for  them,  individually  and 
nationally,  the  only  paths  of  safety  and  salvation. 
Hence  the  Psalmist,  voicing  in  this  song  Israel's 
trust  in  Jehovah  and  comparing  it  to  the  assured 
confidence  of  a  flock  in  its  shepherd,  would  have  in 
his  thought  both  of  these  allied  meanings.  True 
to  his  metaphor,  his  poetic  vision  would  see  the 
flock  led  in  the  paths  of  physical  safety;  but  in  the 
moral  application  both  he  and  his  people  saw  that 
the  very  word  he  used  meant  that  for  Israel  there 
were  no  paths  of  safety  except  those  of  righteous- 
ness. With  regard,  therefore,  to  the  central 
thought  of  the  verse,  no  deduction  is  to  be  made 
from  the  strong  ethical  meaning  of  the  common 
version,  "paths  of  righteousness,"  though  we  sub- 
stitute for  it  the  more  metaphorically  consistent 
phrase  "paths  of  safety."  To  the  Hebrew,  safety, 
salvation,  and  righteousness  meant  for  human 
beings  essentially  one  and  the  same  thing. 

But  this  central   idea  of  the  verse  is  placed  be- 


70  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

tween  two  other  ideas,  which  are  also  important  in 
disclosing  the  poet's  full  thought.  First  he  says, 
"Jehovah  reviveth  [or  restoreth]  my  soul."  The 
word  (Nephish)  here  translated  "soul"  is  the 
same  word  which  the  writer  of  Genesis  used  in  de- 
scribing the  creation  of  man,  where  Jehovah  is  de- 
picted as  breathing  into  the  nostrils  of  the  clay 
image  he  had  formed  "the  breath  of  life;  and  man 
became  a  living  soul."  The  Hebrew  word  for 
"soul  "  signified  primitively  the  breath  of  life,  the 
animating  principle  of  all  living  creatures,  the  vital 
essence  without  which  they  could  not  be  sustained 
in  existence.  And  this  always  remained  the  pri- 
mary and  leading  meaning  of  the  word.  The  deriv- 
ative meaning,  of  a  rational  intelligent  principle  as 
something  distinct  from  the  physical  principle  of 
life,  never  had  for  the  Hebrews  so  prominent  and 
positive  a  place  as  it  has  had  in  Christian  thought. 
The  soul  was  literally  to  them  the  breath  of  life, 
as  it  was  the  breath  of  Jehovah's  life,  from  whom 
it  came.  And  the  Hebrew  poet's  most  natural 
thought  in  this  first  part  of  the  verse  is  that 
Jehovah  still  revivifies  and  refreshes  this  principle 
of  life  which  came  from  him.  One  of  the  most 
literal  translators  renders  it,  "He  reviveth  my 
life."  Dr.  Noyes,  while  retaining  the  word 
"soul,"  in  a  note  paraphrases  the  meaning  of  the 
sentence  thus :  "  He  refreshes  me  when  drooping 
and  fainting  with  fatigue  or  distress."  In  all  trans- 
lations this  idea  of  renewal  of  vitality  is  evident. 
The  other  subsidiary  thought,  on  the  other  side 


PATHS    OF    SAFETY  Jl 

of  the  central  idea,  is  contained  in  the  familiar 
Scriptural  phrase  "for  his  name's  sake," — "He 
leadeth  in  paths  of  righteousness  for  his  name's 
sake,"  which  means  simply  that  he  does  it  be- 
cause of  his  own  nature,  or  from  the  impulses  of 
his  own  being  and  for  ends  involved  in  his  being. 
These  three  elements,  then,  constituted  essen- 
tially the  thought  of  the  verse  as  it  sprang  from 
the  Hebrew  poet's  mind,  but  disrobed  of  its  poet- 
ical dress:  first,  Jehovah  —  the  Eternal  —  is  the 
continual  quickener  and  sustainer  of  human  life,  as 
he  was  its  creator;  second,  he  is  guiding  human 
life  toward  and  in  ways  of  righteousness  and 
safety;  third,  his  doing,  both  as  to  motive  and 
end,  is  because  of  the  nature  of  his  own  being. 
Now  put  the  three  parts  together  into  prose  thus : 
"The  Eternal  Power  is  the  producer  and  sustainer 
of  life,  and  in  and  of  its  own  nature  is  guiding 
life  onward  to  righteousness."  Is  there  anything 
in  that  statement  which  the  human  mind  to-day 
can  rationally  deny?  As  we  approach  the  twen- 
tieth century,  are  we  outgrowing  the  convictions 
here  expressed?  Has  science  as  yet  even  offered 
anything  to  displace  them?  So  far  from  it  is  the 
fact  that  we  may  say  with  confidence  that  the  doc- 
trine of  evolution,  which  is  at  the  basis  of  modern 
science,  involves  necessarily  these  convictions. 
As  in  the  discourse  on  "The  Eternal  our  Shep- 
herd," so  again  let  us  use  Herbert  Spencer's 
propositions  to  illustrate  this.  I  refer  to  him  not 
because  I  am  an  accepter  of  his  philosophical  sys- 


'J2  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

tem,  though  I  recognize  his  great  ability  both  in 
research  and  analysis,  but  because  he  is  the  ac- 
knowledged head  to-day  of  that  large  school  of 
philosophy  which  takes  as  the  basis  of  its  reason- 
ings only  such  phenomena  as  science  would  accept. 
Alongside,  then,  of  the  foregoing  translation  of 
the  poetry  of  our  verse  into  philosophical  prose, — 
"The  Eternal  Power  is  the  producer  and  sustainer 
of  life,  and  of  its  own  nature  is  guiding  life  on- 
ward to  righteousness," — let  us  place  Mr.  Spen- 
cer's now  familiar  declaration  concerning  what  he 
commonly  calls  the  "Ultimate  Reality,"  "the  Un- 
knowable," or  the  "Great  Enigma"  of  the  uni- 
verse: "There  remains  the  one  absolute  certainty, 
that  man  is  ever  in  the  presence  of  an  Infinite  and 
Eternal  Energy  from  which  all  things  proceed." 
That  tallies  sufficiently  with  so  much  of  the  He- 
brew thought  as  refers  to  the  relation  of  human  life 
to  the  Eternal  and  to  the  action  of  the  Eternal 
Power  from  its  own  nature.  And  as  to  the  other 
part,  the  guidance  in  righteousness,  consider  this 
passage  from  one  of  the  earliest  of  Mr.  Spencer's 
works:  "Man  may  properly  consider  himself  as  one 
of  the  myriad  agencies  through  whom  works  the 
Unknown  Cause;  and,  when  the  Unknown  Cause 
produces  in  him  a  certain  belief,  he  is  thereby 
authorized  to  profess  and  act  out  that  belief.  Not 
as  adventitious  therefore  will  the  wise  man  regard 
the  faith  which  is  in  him.  The  highest  truth  he 
sees  he  will  fearlessly  utter;  knowing  that,  let 
what  may  come  of  it,  he  is  thus  playing  his  right 


PATHS    OF    SAFETY  73 

part  in  the  world  —  knowing  that  if  he  can  effect 
the  change  he  aims  at  —  well;  if  not — well  also; 
though  not  so  well."  Mr.  Spencer  wrote  this  par- 
ticularly of  intellectual  truth;  but  he  would  say  it 
equally  of  ethical  truth,  and  it  would  apply  equally 
to  the  conditions  of  moral  progress.  The  Eternal 
Power,  we  can  say,  is  guiding  man  in  righteous- 
ness, because  the  Power  is  itself  organized  in 
human  beings  as  the  sentiment  of  right  and  as  the 
impelling  authority  of  obligation  to  do  the  right. 
Even  ordinary  men  and  women  have  this  much  of 
the  Eternal  within  them  directing  them  toward 
right  paths.  And  in  extraordinary  men  and 
women,  in  saintly  characters,  in  heroic  actors  for 
the  right,  in  martyrs  and  prophets,  it  is  nothing 
less  than  the  veritable  power  and  presence  of  the 
Eternal  that  in  and  through  them  is  leading  and 
lifting  the  world  to  higher  righteousness. 

Of  course,  I  am  not  claiming  that  the  Psalmist 
himself  had  the  slightest  intimation  of  these  ethi- 
cal results  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution  or  any  con- 
ception of  that  doctrine.  Nor  am  I  making  any 
attempt  to  rationalize  his  words  in  order  to  fit 
them  to  modern  beliefs.  That  is  always  a  vicious 
mode  of  interpreting  the  Bible  or  any  other  book. 
I  am  not  in  these  lectures  seeking  Biblical  author- 
ity, but  only  a  possible  harmony  between  the 
suggestions  of  poetic  religious  sentiment  and  sci- 
entific fact.  The  Psalmist  accepted,  doubtless,  the 
belief  of  his  time  and  race  that  the  relation  be- 
tween   Israel   and   Jehovah   was   of    a   supernatural 


74  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

kind;  that  God  had  mechanically  created  man,  as 
the  Genesis  writer  said,  from  the  dust  of  the  earth, 
and  then  breathed  into  the  frame  of  flesh  the  breath 
of  life;  and  that,  all  along,  the  divine  guidance 
of  Israel  was  miraculously  attested.  But,  though 
doubtless  holding  these  theological  beliefs,  they  do 
not  appear  in  this  song  of  confidence  and  hope. 
Nothing  appears  there  that,  considered  as  poetry, 
is  at  all  inconsistent  with  the  most  rational  belief 
11  the  natural  order  and  unfolding  of  the  universe 
as  explained  by  the  most  recent  science.  Like  all 
great  poets,  the  Psalmist  was  a  seer  as  well  as  poet. 
He  had  an  insight  into  deeper  truths  than  those 
which  the  theologies  express, —  into  truths  which 
underlie  all  forms  of  statement  and  abide,  though 
the  verbal  forms  may  change  and  disappear.  The 
important  thing  for  us  to  note  in  respect  to  this 
verse  is  that  the  poet  here  expressed  a  sublime 
faith  in  the  Eternal  as  the  power  that  from  its  own 
nature  and  life  produces  and  sustains  life  in  indi- 
vidual human  beings  and  in  nations,  and  is  guiding 
life  on  to  moral  consciousness  and  moral  deeds. 
This  is  the  great  and  abiding  truth  which  this 
verse  has  brought  down  to  us;  and  this  truth  is  of 
infinitely  greater  moment  to  us  than  to  know  what 
kind  of  theological  explanation  the  writer  might 
have  given  of  it.  And  it  is  of  infinitely  more 
consequence  to  us  to-day  to  grasp  this  truth  of 
vital  relation  between  man  and  the  Eternal, —  to 
grasp  it  not  merely  in  its  intellectual  but  in  its 
practical    bearings, —  than    it    is    to    hold    this    or 


PATHS    OF    SAFETY 


75 


that  philosophical  theory  concerning  the  mode  of 
the  relation.  And  should  any  one  still  object  that 
the  poetical  imagery  of  the  verse  is  anthropomor- 
phic, pointing  to  an  external  relation  between  God 
and  man  rather  than  to  an  inward  organic  relation, 
I  should  answer  that  a  similar  objection  might  be 
made  to  Emerson's  "Song  of  Nature,"  whose 
motive  is  to  depict  the  creative  process  according 
to  the  philosophy  of  evolution.  That  is,  he  per- 
sonifies, as  the  Hebrew  poet  did. 

"  I  sit  by  the  shining  Fount  of  Life 
And  pour  the  deluge  still  " 

suggests  a  venerable  personal  figure,  mixing  the 
creative  elements  which  are  finally  to  result  in 
man.  These  are  matters  to  be  settled  by  the 
canons,  not  of  logic  nor  metaphysics,  but  of  poetry. 
But  there  is  another  point  where  the  underlying 
truth  of  this  verse  comes  into  wonderful  accord 
with  the  rational  and  scientific  thought  of  the 
present  day.  It  is  one  of  the  recently  discovered 
principles  of  the  science  of  ethics,  which  may  now 
be  regarded  as  established,  that  the  law  for  distin- 
guishing between  right  and  wrong  had  its  origin 
in  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  or  of  physical 
safety.  I  do  not  mean  that  it  is  settled  that  the 
entire  moral  sentiment  thus  originated.  There  is 
a  part  of  Jihe  moral  sentiment,  and  a  most  impor- 
tant part, —  as  the  intuitive  sense  of  justice,  for 
instance,  — which  I  do  not  think  can  be  thus  ac- 
counted   for.      That  part   of    the  ethical    faculty  I 


76  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

should  define  as  an  intuitive  perception  of  the 
equation  of  rights  between  human  beings  in  their 
relations  to  each  other.  At  first  a  man  said  to  his 
neighbor,  You  have  no  right  to  kill  me,  you  have 
no  right  to  take  away  my  food.  But  by  and  by 
there  dawned  a  day  when  he  saw  that,  if  his  neigh- 
bor had  no  right  to  rob  or  kill  him,  he  for  the 
same  reason  had  no  right  to  rob  or  kill  his  neigh- 
bor. That  is,  what  was  good  for  him  was  equally 
good  for  his  neighbor.  Then  dawned  the  idea  of 
justice  and  the  Golden  Rule.  And  this  is  a  per- 
ception that  was  as  sure  to  come  with  a  certain 
stage  of  mental  development  as  was  the  perception 
of  the  mathematical  relations  between  numbers. 
But,  long  before  this  stage  of  development  was 
reached,  there  came  to  primitive  man  from  the  in- 
stinct of  self-preservation  the  first  crude  perception 
of  a  division  of  things  or  acts  into  those  that  were 
right  and  those  that  were  wrong.  Actions  and 
things  which  favored  life  were  regarded  as  right: 
they  were  to  be  sought  as  good  and  fitting.  But 
actions  and  things  which  were  hostile  to  life, 
threatening  or  assailing  it,  were  regarded  as 
wrong:  they  were  to  be  shunned.  And  they  were 
instinctively  shunned,  in  fact,  as  their  opposites 
were  instinctively  sought.  And  this  primitive  at- 
tempt at  moral  classification  of  things  on  the  line 
of  the  separation  between  things  according  as  they 
favored  or  did  not  favor  the  instinct  of  safety  for 
one's  own  life  remains  to  this  day  the  bottom  line 
of  the  distinction  between  good  and  evil.      Only 


PATHS    OF    SAFETY  JJ 

the  definition  of  life  has  now  become  for  man  so 
enriched  and  heightened  that  that  original  divid- 
ing line  is  mostly  concealed  or  obliterated.  Still, 
to-day  it  is  the  things  which  favor  life  that  are 
right,  and  the  things  which  oppose  life  that  are 
wrong.  But  for  civilized  and  enlightened  man- 
kind life  means  vastly  more  than  it  could  mean 
for  the  primitive  savage,  who  was  simply  bent  on 
finding  supplies  for  his  physical  instincts.  Above 
the  physical  life  are  now  whole  realms,  another 
order  of  life, —  intellectual,  moral,  affectional, 
philanthropic,  spiritual, —  of  which  our  barbarian 
ancestors  were  wholly  ignorant.  Yet  it  remains 
true  that  things  which  favor  these  higher  and  high- 
est phases  of  life  are  the  things  which  we  are  to 
seek  as  right,  and  that  things  opposing  are  to  be 
shunned  as  wrong;  so  that  now  it  happens  that  the 
mere  physical  instincts,  even  the  instinct  for  sav- 
ing one's  own  bodily  life,  must  often  be  denied 
and  sacrificed  for  the  sake  of  holding  to  the  things 
demanded  by  the  higher  life.  There  are  many 
things  which  a  highly  moral  man  will  die  rather 
than  do.  He  will  let  go  his  physical  life  in  order 
to  keep  untarnished  his  moral  integrity,  his  honor, 
his  convictions  of  truth. 

"  Though  Love  repine,  and  Reason  chafe, 
There  came  a  voice  without  reply, — 
'Tis  man's  perdition  to  be  safe. 

When  for  the  truth  he  ought  to  die." 

Emerson, 

Now,  whence  has  come  all  this  varied  and  won- 


y8  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

derful  development  of  the  function  of  life,  as- 
cending in  man  from  the  lowest  grade  of  fleshly 
instincts,  through  realms  of  intellectual  sagacity 
and  enjoyment,  and  of  affectional  activities,  and 
through  all  the  grades  of  moral  perception  and 
deed,  up  to  the  hero's  self-sacrificing  action  in 
defence  of  the  right,  and  to  the  beauty  of  holiness 
shining  in  some  woman's  character  and  face,  whom 
you  may  find  unhonored  and  little  known  on 
your  own  street?  Whence  comes  it  all?  all  this 
abounding  richness,  power,  and  beauty  of  moral 
life?  Whence  but  from  the  mystery  of  that  "Infi- 
nite and  Eternal  Energy,  from  which  all  things 
proceed?"  Whence  but  from  that  Power  Eternal 
which  the  Hebrew  conceived  as  breathing  into  man 
the  breath  of  life,  as  ever  invigorating  that  life 
from  his  own  nature,  and  continually  leading  man- 
kind on  in  ways  of  righteousness  to  higher  and 
nobler  life?  If  the  Hebrew  conceived  the  action 
of  the  Eternal  as  outward  and  miraculous,  while 
modern  science  regards  it  as  inward  and  organic, 
the  difference  is  not  as  to  the  substance  of  the 
fact,   but  as  to  the  method  of  explaining  it. 

Life  itself,  then,  under  the  impulsion  of  the 
Eternal  Power,  develops  and  advances  in  the 
human  race  on  the  lines  of  righteousness.  In 
other  words,  the  paths  of  righteousness  are  the 
paths  of  preservation,  safety,  increasing  vitality, 
and  growth.  The  right  is  organic,  organific,  life- 
sustaining,  and  life  refining  and  greatening.  Evil 
is    inorganic,    disorganizing,    disintegrating,    nox- 


PATHS    OF    SAFETY  79 

ious,  and  deadly, —  in  the  end  suicidal.  The  late 
Professor  Kingdon  Clifford,  the  premature  cutting 
off  of  whose  remarkably  acute  and  sincere  intellect 
the  philosophical  and  scientific  world  can  but  still 
lament,  was  fond  of  touching  upon  this  scientific 
natural  distinction  between  right  and  wrong. 
"My  actions,"  he  said,  "are  to  be  regarded  as 
good  or  bad,  according  as  they  tend  to  improve  me 
as  an  organism,  to  make  me  move  further  away 
from  those  intermediate  forms  through  which  my 
race  has  passed,  or  to  make  me  retrace  these 
upward  steps  and  go  down."  This  organic  power 
which  appears  in  right  action  he  personifies  as 
"the  mother  principle  of  Life."  He  was  very 
chary,  you  know,  about  recognizing  or  naming  any 
power  that  theologians  have  called  God;  but  this 
phrase,  "the  mother  principle  of  Life,"  may  re- 
mind us  of  Theodore  Parker's  frequent  descriptive 
name  for  the  Eternal  Power,  "  Our  Father  and 
Mother  God."  And  to  this  "mother  principle  of 
Life"  Professor  Clifford's  fine  poetic  instincts  led 
him  to  apply,  still  further  personifying  it,  Mr. 
Swinburne's  rich  hymn,  which  aptly  illustrates  our 
theme :  — 

"  Mother  of  man's  time-travelling  generations, 

Breath  of  his  nostrils,  heart-blood  of  his  heart, 
God  above  all  Gods,  worshipped  of  all  nations. 
Light  above  light,  law  beyond  law,  thou  art. 

"  Thy  face  is  as  a  sword  smiting  in  sunder 

Shadows  and  chains  and  dreams  and  iron  things ; 
The  sea  is  dumb  before  thy  face,  the  thunder 
Silent,  the  skies  are  narrower  than  thy  wings. 


80  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

"  Thine  hands,  without  election  or  exemption, 

Feed  all  men,  fainting  from  false  peace  or  strife, 
O  thou,  the  resurrection  and  redemption. 

The  godhead  and  the  manhood  and  the  life." 

The  phrasing  of  this  hymn  is  more  modern,  more 
colored  by  scientific  thought;  but  in  essential  idea 
and  sentiment  there  seems  to  me  no  great  differ- 
ence between  it  and  the  Twenty-third  Psalm. 
And  the  poetic  metaphor  is  fully  as  audacious  and 
anthropomorphic  as  was  that  of  the  Hebrew  singer. 
Indeed,  the  Hebrews'  conception  of  Eternal  Power 
and  of  its  relation  to  human  life  on  earth  was  more 
in  accord  with  the  modern  scientific  view  of  the 
universe  than  the  commonly  accepted  Christian 
theology  has  been.  We  may  almost  say  that  the 
Hebrew  thinkers  anticipated  that  scientific  view  of 
the  law  of  right  being  the  organic  principle  of  life 
which  we  have  been  considering.  They  saw  at 
least  the  vital  connection  between  righteousness 
and  life  and  the  successful  attainment  of  life's 
ends,  whether  in  individuals  or  in  the  nation  as  a 
whole.  This  truth  was  a  central  article  of  the 
Hebrew  faith.  Israel's  prophets  preached  it  and  his 
poets  sung  it.  The  Hebrew  had  a  glowing  vision 
of  national  prosperity,  power,  and  happiness;  but 
he  saw  the  realization  of  the  vision  always  at  the 
end  of  the  paths  of  righteousness.  It  was  right- 
eousness that  would  exalt  the  nation.  The  national 
kings,  in  fact,  were  not  very  righteous;  yet  in 
righteousness  was  the  king's  throne  to  be  finally 
established.      And  the  sacrifices  which  the  people 


PATHS    OF    SAFETY  8l 

brought  to  the  altars  —  that  is,  their  forms  of  wor- 
ship—  were  declared  to  be  worthless  unless  with 
them  they  brought  the  sacrifices  of  righteousness. 

And  these  truths  have  lost  none  of  their  force 
with  the  lapse  of  centuries.  There  are  weak 
points  in  our  own  national  life  where  they  apply 
to-day  with  special  aptness, —  points  where  party 
success  is  sought  rather  than  the  country's  welfare, 
or  self-seeking  demagoguism  is  raised  to  places 
of  power  which  should  only  be  filled  with  wisdom 
and  integrity,  or  wealth  buys  its  way  into  official 
position  where  only  honest  votes  should  be  the 
electors.  At  all  these  points  and  others  which 
might  be  named  lurks  danger.  At  every  national 
act  of  injustice  there  is  a  fracture  of  the  nation's 
armor.  Every  species  of  wrong-doing,  every  kind 
of  wickedness,  whether  on  the  part  of  a  nation  or 
an  individual,  falls  back  with  devastating  effect  on 
the  doer.  We  cannot  wrong  the  negro,  nor  the 
Indian,  nor  the  Chinese,  without  wronging  our 
country  by  retarding  its  possibilities  of  progress  in 
real  greatness.  It  was  one  of  the  ancient  wise 
men  of  India  who  wrote:  "Justice,  being  de- 
stroyed, will  destroy;  being  preserved,  will 
preserve:  it  must  therefore  never  be  violated. 
Iniquity  committed  in  this  world  produces  not  fruit 
immediately,  but,  advancing  by  little  and  little,  it 
eradicates  the  man  who  committed  it.  He  perishes 
at  length  from  his  whole  root  upwards."  Thus  our 
doctrine  comes  back  from  the  far  East:  it  is  only 
paths  of    righteousness    that    are   paths   of    safety. 


82  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

Wrong  is  a  crime  against  the  universe.  Right  is 
the  law  of  unfolding  and  ascending  life  for  per- 
sonal  man  and  for  mankind. 

Illustrations  of  this  pregnant  truth  in  individual 
experience  we  should  not  have  to  seek  far  to  find, 
—  men  and  women  who,  because  of  some  wrong 
committed  against  the  body  or  against  conscience 
or  against  the  higher  aspirations  of  heart  and  soul, 
lose  not  only  the  high  successes  which  their  facul- 
ties might  have  achieved,  but  lose  the  very  power 
of  achieving;  while  persons  of  smaller  natural 
gifts,  by  keeping  to  the  paths  of  right,  advance 
steadily  in  mental  and  moral  wealth  and  in  all  the 
satisfactions  that  are  worthiest  of  human  attain- 
ment. The  paths  of  rectitude,  of  purity,  of  tem- 
perance, of  kindness,  of  love,  of  honor  and  honesty, 
these  are  also  the  high  and  straight  paths  of  safety. 
They  are  the  ways  of  the  Eternal,  the  highways 
which  the  Eternal  Power  has  been  preparing 
through  the  ages  whereon  man  may  walk.  Into 
these  ways  and  on  them  the  Eternal  is  still  striv- 
ing to  guide  mankind.  Manifold  are  the  solicita- 
tions and  constraints  which  would  hold  man  to  the 
high  paths  of  rectitude  and  holiness.  Alluring 
hope  beckons.  Fear  of  the  natural  retribution  of 
pain,  which  follows  every  departure  from  the  way 
of  right,  urges.  Conscience,  with  its  august  au- 
thority, commands.  Reason,  by  its  persuasions, 
invites.  The  heart,  through  its  kindly  sympathies 
and  loves,  its  generous  affections  and  spiritual 
ideals,  offers  the  gentler  leading-strings  for  keep- 


PATHS    OF    SAFETY  83 

ing  human  feet  and  faces  turned  toward  the  better 
future.  Thus  the  Eternal,  with  man  and  in  man 
and  through  man,  has,  from  the  beginning  to  this 
day,  been  guiding  him  onward  in  a  pathway  of 
material  and  moral  amelioration  and  ever  toward 
some  larger,  purer,  and  richer  good.  But  this 
guidance  is  for  mankind,  and  for  individual  man  as 
a  part  of  mankind.  The  aim  of  the  Eternal  is  not 
to  gratify  selfish,  individual  passion  as  an  end  in 
itself, —  not  to  grant  a  purely  selfish  pleasure,  or 
safety,  or  prosperity.  The  principle  is,  not  what 
is  good  for  me  singly  or  you  singly,  but  for  us  and 
all  together.  And  the  same  majestic  yet  tender 
Power  is  at  this  moment  soliciting  each  one  of  us 
to  come  willingly,  docilely,  with  our  whole  heart 
and  soul  and  mind  and  strength,  under  this  wise 
and  benignant  leadership,  as  active  helpers  in  the 
ameliorating  work.  The  ameliorations  both  social 
and  personal  may  be  slow,  but  they  come.  To 
what  great  consummation  even  on  this  earth  they 
tend,  our  finite  understandings  may  have  little 
power  to  descry.  But,  where  the  understanding 
cannot  see,  the  spirit  can  dream  and  yearn  and 
impel.  The  Hebrew  poet  pictured  for  Israel  at 
the  end  of  the  paths  of  righteousness  a  land  "flow- 
ing with  milk  and  honey," — a  national  era  of 
undisturbed  power  and  prosperity.  England's 
laureate  has  voiced  the  nineteenth  century  social 
dream, — 

"  In  the  Parliament  of  man,  the  Federation  of  the  world." 


84  THE   TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

And,  to  show  that  this  principle  is  no  mere 
philosophical  abstraction,  let  us  note  a  few  of  the 
familiar  practical  exhibitions  of  its  working.  Not 
far-fetched,  but  every-day  illustrations  they  shall 
be,  and  briefly  sketched.  Two  men  are  making  a 
business  bargain  with  each  other.  It  is  for  goods 
or  labor  or  skill  on  one  side,  to  be  paid  for  in 
money  on  the  other;  or  it  is  some  kind  of  ex- 
change of  service  or  of  property.  On  the  ground 
of  purely  selfish  propensity  each  strives  to  get  the 
better  end  of  the  bargain,  the  utmost  possible  for 
himself,  leaving  to  the  other  the  shorter  part  of  the 
exchange.  But  there  comes  in  a  third  party  to 
this  contract,  demanding  equal  and  honest  measure 
between  them.  This  demand  is  made  by  the  Eter- 
nal that  is  in  them, —  the  voice  that  pleads  in  each 
of  their  hearts,  however  much  they  may  attempt  to 
confuse  and  silence  it,  for  honesty  and  honor. 
These,  it  says,  are  the  pathway  of  the  Eternal : 
make  room  for  them  in  your  contract  if  you  would 
have  it  hold  before  the  moral  tribunal  of  mankind 
and  your  own  conscience. 

Questions  of  great  public  moment  arise, —  ques- 
tions affecting  the  interests,  the  physical  and 
moral  welfare,  of  large  numbers  of  people;  ques- 
tions of  social  and  political  reform;  questions  per- 
taining to  the  relations  between  capital  and  labor. 
Here,  too,  it  is  some  form  of  selfish  interest  that 
is  the  cause  of  strife.  One  man's  or  party's  self- 
ishness pulls  this  way,  and  another's  selfishness 
pulls  that  way.      "Follow  the  paths  of   the   Eter- 


PATHS    OF    SAFETV  85 

nal,"  cries  a  voice  above  self-interest  or  party 
interest,  "which  are  ways  of  justice  and  equity." 
Find  them,  and  they  will  safely  bridge  the  gulf 
that  separates  you.  Or  it  may  be  a  strife  between 
nations.  National  selfishness,  a  false  pride,  a 
false  patriotism,  high,  giddy-headed  arrogance 
and  boastfulness,  and  even  selfish  individual  ambi- 
tions, help  to  foment  the  terrible  passions  of  war. 
But  in  the  midst  of  all  such  international  strifes 
there  enters  another  power  that  demands  justice 
and  magnanimity, —  a  Power  that  is  the  arbiter 
among  the  nations,  and  declares  that  only  by  ad- 
hering to  these  ways  of  the  Eternal  Righteous- 
ness can  strife  be  allayed  and  peace  preserved 
permanently. 

A  young  man  or  a  young  woman  reaches  the  age 
of  discretion  and  responsibility.  Youth  with  its 
tasks  and  its  training  is  over.  They  are  about  to 
take  their  places  in  the  striving  world  of  business, 
or  of  professional  or  social  achievement.  They 
are  elate  with  anticipation  and  the  sense  of  free- 
dom, eager  for  the  new  tests  of  their  powers. 
They  can  follow  some  of  the  manifold  ways  of  self- 
ish pleasure  and  pursuit;  they  can  live  for  social 
success,  make  fashion  a  god,  regard  wealth  as  the 
chief  end  of  existence,  and  covet  the  material  lux- 
uries and  enjoyments  which  wealth  can  purchase. 
They  may  be  ambitious  of  high  position  and  dis- 
tinction without  much  concern  about  the  means. 
They  may  be  free  even  to  follow  the  beck  of  false 
pleasure  to   lower  levels  of    folly  and    vice.     But 


86  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

there  is  no  young  man  or  maiden  who  has  had  the 
fortune  of  a  home  education  of  even  average  worth 
to  whom,  at  such  an  era  in  their  lives,  there  will 
not  come  from  their  own  hearts  a  protest  against 
all  the  grosser  of  these  forms  of  self-indulgence, 
and  a  summons  to  higher  paths  and  pursuits,  for  a 
nobler  success.  There  are  high  fields  of  honor  and 
duty  and  usefulness,  of  noble  culture  and  unselfish 
service  to  others'  good,  which  also  invite  their 
fealty  and  their  consecration;  and  this  is  the  invi- 
tation of  the  Eternal.  In  brief,  it  is  an  hour  when 
the  ways  of  the  carnal  self  and  the  ways  of  the 
moral  self  are  alike  soliciting  their  hearts;  and 
they  must  choose  between  them.  The  earnest  ap- 
peal of  the  nobler  self  is,  Bar  out  the  tumult  of 
the  selfish  ambitions  and  passions,  the  revelry  of 
carnal  desire  and  ignoble  pleasures,  and  follow  the 
highways  of  the  Eternal. 

Again,  the  passion  of  love  enters  the  heart,  that 
kind  of  love  which  is  Nature's  special  way  for  the 
preservation  and  progress  of  society,  through  the 
founding  of  the  family  and  the  home.  This  in- 
stinct of  love,  in  itself,  is  literally  the  constrain- 
ing power  of  the  Eternal  in  the  human  organism, 
so  that  the  old  religious  tradition  is  right  which 
represents  marriage  not  merely  as  a  civil  contract, 
but  as  a  divinely  ordained  institution.  Indeed,  it 
may  be  in  this  sense,  as  the  Catholics  claim, 
rightly  called  a  sacrament.  Yet  how  often  mar- 
riage is  degraded  to  merely  a  union  of  self-inter- 
ests,   or,   following  the  sexual   instinct  alone,  may 


PATHS    OF    SAFETY  8/ 

even  be  debased  to  prostitution  and  cruel  sensual- 
ism! The  flesh  itself  then,  in  protest  against  the 
profanation,  cries  out  for  the  higher  law,  for  the 
Power  whose  ways  are  manifest  in  Reason  and  in 
Conscience  as  a  law  for  the  effective  control  of  the 
instinct.  Thus,  and  thus  only,  can  marriage  be 
lifted  above  the  physical  bond  to  a  vital  union  in 
heart  and  soul,  to  the  end  of  increased  intellectual 
and  moral  productiveness.  In  every  marriage  rela- 
tion, lest  passion  should  become  selfishly  extor- 
tionate, and  the  parties  be  too  exclusively  absorbed 
in  their  own  joint  interests  and  pleasures,  let  hus- 
band and  wife  take  their  vows  to  the  law  of  right- 
eousness as  well  as  to  each  other,  and  through  that 
bond  in  the  Eternal  be  joined  together.  Then 
shall  marriage  become,  not  the  debaser,  but  the 
sustainer  of  purity,  holiness,  moral  growth,  and 
genuine   love. 

There  is,  in  fine,  no  personal  relation  in  life, 
whether  it  be  between  neighbor  and  neighbor,  be- 
tween citizen  and  citizen,  between  husband  and 
wife,  between  teacher  and  the  taught,  or  among  the 
various  members  of  the  household,  where  the  voice 
of  the  Eternal  does  not  proclaim  the  law  of  right- 
eousness as  the  way  to  unity  and  mutual  helpful- 
ness in  the  upbuilding  of  character.  It  is  the 
voice  of  that  mysterious,  unseen  guest  who  makes 
the  third  in  every  human  transaction,  calling  for 
justice,  honesty,  and  honor,  who  enters  noiselessly 
every  company,  to  silence  the  slanderous  tongue 
and   to  command   courtesy,   candor,    kindness,    and 


88  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

truth.     It    is  the  voice   of  the   One  over  all   and 
through  all,  who  has  the  right  to  say:  — 

"  They  reckon  ill  who  leave  me  out; 
When  me  they  fly,  I  am  the  wings. 
They  know  not  well  the  subtle  ways 
I  keep,  and  pass,  and  turn  again." 

Man  may  follow  the  ways  of  the  lower  self, 
which  end  in  disappointment  and  ashes;  or  he  may 
follow  this  higher  guide,  whose  ways,  even  when 
difficult,  are  lined  with  pleasantness,  and  all  whose 
paths  are  toward  peace. 


THE   TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM    IN    THE 
NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 


IV. 


THE   VALLEY    OF    SHADOWS. 

"  Yea,  though  I  walk  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death, 
I  will  fear  no  evil :  for  thou  art  with  me  ;  thy  rod  and  thy  staff  they 
comfort  me." 

I  HAVE  named  the  topic  suggested  by  this  verse 
of  the  Twenty-third  Psalm  "The  Valley  of 
Shadows."  The  phraseology  of  the  common  ver- 
sion has  tended  to  associate  the  verse  very  deeply 
and  almost  exclusively  with  the  human  experience 
of  death, —  with  bereaved  hearts  and  darkened 
homes,  and  the  mysterious  passage  of  familial 
friends  to  some  other  and  unseen  sphere  of  exist 
ence.  But  to  the  Hebrew  the  structure  of  the  lan- 
guage suggested  a  much  broader  meaning ;  namely, 
any  perils  comparable  to  the  dark  mystery  of  death. 
The  key-phrase  of  the  verse  is  "  shadow  of  death  " ; 
and  in  the  Hebrew  idiom  "shadow,"  or  "shade," 
is  the  leading  noun,  and  the  adjunct  "of  death" 
performs  the  service  of  an  adjective.  The  Hebrew 
language  is  very  poor  in  adjectives,  and  nouns 
habitually  are   used   for   descriptive   epithets;  and 


90  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

the  common  version  too  often  follows  the  Hebrew 
rather  than  English  idiom  in  this  respect,  and 
hence  frequently  leads  to  misconception  of  the 
original  meaning.  A  more  exact  rendering  of  the 
meaning  of  this  phrase  would  be  "deathly  shadow" 
rather  than  "shadow  of  death."  It  is  not  an  infre- 
quent phrase  in  the  poetry  of  the  Old  Testament ; 
and  the  context,  as  well  as  the  structure  of  the  lan- 
guage, shows  that  the  general  idea  is  that  of  death- 
like darkness  in  opposition  to  the  light  and  cheer 
of  life.  There  is  another  word  in  the  verse  which 
may  be  improved  in  the  interest  of  exactness; 
namely,  the  word  "rod."  It  means  here  the  shep- 
herd's crook.  But  it  has  another  meaning  in  the 
Hebrew  as  well  as  in  English,  by  which  it  becomes 
an  instrument  of  chastisement  and  terror.  This, 
of  course,  cannot  be  the  meaning  in  this  verse. 
Making  these  changes,  so  as  to  get  nearer  to  the 
actual  thought  and  imagery  of  the  Psalmist,  we 
should  have:  "Yea,  though  I  walk  through  a  valley 
of  deathly  shadows  [or,  still  stronger,  deathly  dark- 
ness], I  fear  no  evil:  for  thou  art  with  me;  thy 
crook  and  thy  staff,  they  comfort  me." 

This  translation,  while  more  literally  exact  than 
the  common  version,  gives  us  a  phraseology  equally 
poetical;  and,  you  will  note  also,  it  is  a  rendering 
that  harmonizes  much  better  with  the  metaphor  of 
the  shepherd  guiding  his  flock.  For  the  common 
version  here,  as  in  the  phrase  "paths  of  righteous- 
ness "  of  the  preceding  verse,  has  the  defect  of 
passing  from  the  metaphor  to  the  human  side  of  the 


THE    VALLEY    OF    SHADOWS  9I 

comparison,  which  the  metaphor  should  vividly 
suggest  to  the  imagination,  but  not  express.  Nor, 
it  may  be  added,  is  it  probable  that  any  Hebrew 
poet  would  have  ventured  to  assert  of  a  dumb 
animal  that  it  could  be  led  into  a  pen  of  actual 
slaughter,  with  the  sight  of  death-struggles  before 
its  eyes  and  the  terrorizing  smell  of  blood  in  its 
nostrils,  and  show  no  signs  of  fear.  It  could 
be  led  through  dangers  and  darkness,  confiding  in 
the  shepherd's  care,  but  not  without  terror  to  the 
extremity  of  death.  This  is  a  victory  over  the 
animal  instinct  of  life-preservation  which  is  re- 
served only  for  rational  and  moral  beings. 

Following,  then,  the  changed  translation  I  have 
offered  (which  is  very  nearly  that  of  Professor 
Noyes,  and  of  which,  let  me  say  in  passing,  the 
moral  lesson  for  mankind  would  remain  essentially 
the  same  as  that  conveyed  by  the  common  version, 
only  enlarged),  following  this  changed  translation, 
what  was  the  idea  imaged  to  the  Hebrew  poet's 
mind  in  this  verse?  We  can  present  it  as  a  pict- 
ure, for  doubtless  it  was  pictured  before  his  mental 
vision.  He  had  imagined  the  flock  led  by  the 
shepherd  from  the  green  pastures  and  still  waters 
where  all  their  wants  had  been  more  than  supplied, 
and  as  then  gathered  and  guided,  with  their  re- 
freshed animal  spirits,  along  paths  of  safety  as  if 
bound  homeward  to  their  folds.  But  the  homeward 
paths  of  safety  suggested  the  further  thought  that 
even  these  safe  paths  must  often  pass  through  ways 
of  seeming  danger.      For  his  people,  to  whom   his 


92  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

song  was  to  carry  its  moral  lesson,  the  poet  knew 
that  the  safe  paths  often  thus  lay  through  imminent 
perils.  His  thought  of  a  safety  full  and  complete, 
therefore,  in  order  to  reach  its  climax  must  be 
tested,  not  merely  by  ways  of  comparative  smooth- 
ness and  ease,  where  all  was  light  and  cheery,  but 
by  ways  of  difficulty  and  darkness,  where  unseen 
dangers  might  lurk  and  life  be  menaced  by  secret 
foes.  His  metaphor  was  adequate  to  the  need.  It 
is  not  unlikely  that  there  came  to  his  mind  and  to 
his  poetic  vision  the  vivid  remembrance  of  some 
actual  valley  which  was  known  to  him, —  a  narrow 
defile,  with  rocky  but  wooded  heights  looming 
precipitously  and  darkly  up  on  both  sides;  a  valley 
of  shadows  even  at  noonday,  damp  and  deathly 
with  its  malodorous  atmosphere,  but  at  twilight, 
with  its  deepening  darkness,  a  place  of  terrors, 
suggesting  wild  beasts  watching  in  ambush  for 
their  prey;  a  place  ghostly  with  the  mystery  of 
evil,  and  hinting  every  imaginable  form  of  it. 
The  poet  had  probably  seen  a  flock  following  their 
shepherd  through  such  a  defile.  He  had  seen  the 
sheep  of  the  flock,  as  they  struck  the  dampness 
and  darkness  of  the  valley,  instinctively  huddling 
closer  together,  as  if  for  mutual  protection,  and 
crowding  closer  upon  the  heels  of  the  guiding 
shepherd,  no  one  of  them  there  lingering  to  nibble 
a  tempting  blade  of  grass,  nor  to  quench  thirst  at 
any  wayside  spring,  yet  the  flock  moving  onward 
in  perfect  order,  without  panic,  as  if  massed  in 
one  bodily  organism,  only  with  a  little  quicker  and 


THE    VALLEY    OF    SHADOWS  93 

more  regular  step  than  elsewhere,  and  with  animal 
spirits  subdued  under  the  darkening  shadows,  mov- 
ing steadily  onward  after  their  shepherd  and  appar- 
ently with  entire  confidence  in  his  power  to  lead 
them  safely  through,  either  to  the  morning  light 
and  the  joy-giving  pastures  or  to  the  sheltering 
folds  of  their  nightly  rest.  Very  literally,  per- 
haps, by  some  actual  experience  they  may  have 
learned  that  his  crook  and  his  staff  could  be 
trusted  for  their  defence  against  foes  along  this  way 
of  dismal  shadows. 

Some  such  scene  as  this  was  probably  pictured 
to  the  Psalmist's  mental  vision;  and  the  Hebrews, 
for  whose  inspiration  to  patriotic  faith  and  heroism 
he  sang  this  song  of  trust,  could  not  fail  to  under- 
stand the  lesson,  however  little  they  may  seem  to 
have  profited  by  it.  In  this  verse,  especially,  the 
poet's  phrases  were  rich  in  meaning  for  them. 
Well  they  knew  that  their  actual  ways  were  not 
often  ways  of  pleasantness,  nor  their  paths  peace. 
Well  they  knew  that  their  national  road  was  often 
narrow,  devious,  and  difficult;  that  it  was  beset 
with  perils  and  lay  under  great  shadows  of  mystery 
and  darkness.  Secret  and  open  enemies  awaited 
them  on  either  hand.  Battle  and  death  had  to  be 
faced.  Their  pathway  was  marked  with  a  trail  of 
blood.  Jehovah  they  trusted  as  their  God,  and 
that  they  were  his  peculiar  charge  was  their  faith. 
Yet  Jehovah's  purposes  were  sometimes  veiled 
from  them  in  thick  clouds  of  darkness,  when  he 
seemed  to  have   left  them   to  their  fate.      But  the 


94  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

Psalmist  sought  to  inspire  his  countrymen  with  the 
assurance  that,  amidst  all  trials,  darkness,  and 
perils,  Jehovah  was  still  their  guide,  and  that  he 
was  not  afar  off, —  a  distant  Deity, —  above  the 
clouds  and  beyond  the  valleys,  but  a  leader  there 
with  them,  under  the  clouds  and  in  the  valleys, 
with  them.  Therefore,  with  such  a  leader  and  pro- 
tector, what  evil  could  they  fear,  even  though  they 
walked  among  the  dark  shadows  of  death?  The 
shepherd's  "crook  "  was  emblem  also  of  authority 
and  power.  It  carried  to  the  Hebrew  mind  rnani- 
fold  meanings.  It  represented  kingly  sovereignty. 
Sceptre  was  one  of  its  synonymes.  It  stood  also 
for  the  united  strength  of  a  tribe.  And  the  shep- 
herd's "staff"  meant  not  only  a  stick  to  lean  on, 
a  stay,  a  support,  but  it  had  another  meaning  sig- 
nifying the  means  of  physical  sustenance, —  kin- 
dred to  the  English  phrase  "staff  of  life."  To  the 
Hebrew,  therefore,  Jehovah  was  here  depicted  not 
merely  as  Shepherd  and  Guide,  but  as  Sovereign 
Defender  and  King,  as  the  Bond  of  tribal  union, 
as  Stay  and  Supporter  of  human  uprightness,  and 
as  Sustainer  of  Life  against  the  powers  of  darkness 
and  death. 

Not  that  the  average  Hebrew  mind  distinctly 
held  together  all  these  attributes  in  his  concep- 
tion of  Jehovah  as  a  Shepherd.  Perhaps  the  poet 
himself  did  not  have  them  all  clearly  in  his 
thought  as  he  wrote.  Yet  his  words  imply  them; 
and  all  these  qualities,  and  more,  were  continually 
affirmed  of  Jehovah  in  the  best  Hebrew  literature. 


THE    VALLEY    OF    SHADOWS  95 

The  writers  resorted  to  every  kind  of  noble  appel- 
lation, yet  could  not  find  epithets  of  excellence 
enough  to  match  their  ideas  of  his  greatness  in 
power  and  in  righteousness,  so  that,  after  all 
their  rhetorical  endeavors  at  description,  they 
humbly  acknowledged  that,  "Lo,  these  are  but  a 
part  of  his  ways."  And  the  poets  and  prophets 
were  ever  aiming  to  stir  into  effectual  motive  these 
higher  and  deeper  elements  of  Hebrew  faith. 
Hence  our  Psalmist,  while  he  would  still  declare 
that  Jehovah  was  a  leader  of  Israel,  by  the  way  of 
righteousness,  into  paths  of  safety,  yet  saw  and 
also  declared  that  the  ways  of  righteousness  and 
salvation  often  led  downward,  through  trials  and 
dangers,  to  seeming  desolation  and  death.  Never- 
theless, let  Jehovah's  leadership  be  followed,  and 
even  that  way,  he  proclaimed,  might  be  trod  with 
serene  fearlessness.  With  the  Eternal  Power  as 
leader  close  at  hand,  there  would  surely  be  victory 
for  the  right  at  the  end  of  the  way, —  victory  for 
light  and  for  life  over  desolation  and  darkness  and 
destruction. 

Now  the  essential  elements  of  belief  couched  in 
this  verse  (which  has  itself  been  a  comfort  to 
millions  of  souls),  when  translated  from  metaphor 
to  plain  prose,  are  simply  these:  Human  expe- 
rience is  not  all  bright  and  joyous,  but  has  its 
trials  and  sorrows,  and  always  present  before  it  is 
the  dark  problem  of  death ;  but  there  is  an  Eternal 
Power  with  man,  working  with  and  in  and  for  him, 
amply  adequate  for  meeting  all  problems  and  all 


g6  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

trials  and  for  allaying  the  fear  of  them, —  a  Power 
working  for  Righteousness  through  all  tribulations, 
and  for  Life  in  the  midst  of  death.  Nor  has  any- 
one of  these  points  been  gainsaid  by  the  rational 
thought  or  science  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The 
first  of  them,  that  man  is  subject  to  trials  and  sor- 
rows, and  stands  ever  in  the  presence  of  death,  is 
merely  a  fact  of  common  observation  and  knowl- 
edge. The  second,  that  there  is  an  Eternal  Power 
working  with  him,  is  one  of  the  affirmations  of 
science  in  the  doctrine  of  evolution.  The  third, 
that  this  Power  is  an  ameliorating  force,  working, 
amidst  human  conditions,  towards  personal  and 
social  Righteousness,  and  ever  higher  forms  of 
Righteousness  and  of  Life,  is  amply  based  on  the 
testimony  of  human  history.  And  even  though  it 
be  said  that  the  ameliorating  power  for  mankind  is 
displayed  wholly  in  and  through  man's  own  facul- 
ties, nevertheless,  according  to  scientific  doctrine, 
the  power  must  be  derived  from  and  be  a  manifes- 
tation of  "the  Eternal  Energy  from  which  all 
things  proceed." 

But  these  several  propositions  have  been  suffi- 
ciently considered  in  previous  lectures,  and  need 
not  detain  us  to-day.  Beyond  anything  I  have 
been  able  to  say,  they  may  be  regarded  as  having 
received,  both  from  philosophy  and  science,  abun- 
dant justification.  The  more  important  question 
which  remains  for  us  now  is.  Are  these  truths  re- 
ceiving, or  can  they  receive,  practical  justification 
in   present  human  experience?     To  put  the  ques- 


THE    VALLEY    OF    SHADOWS  9/ 

tion  still  more  definitely,  Is  this  verse,  which 
gives  us  our  theme  to-day,  true  to  the  experience 
of  human  beings  whose  lives  have  come  within  the 
compass  of  our  own  knowledge?  Is  it  true  to  our 
own  experience?  Now  possibly  we  may  not  have 
realized  the  truth  of  it  in  our  own  experience  be- 
cause of  not  having  observed  the  right  conditions; 
and  yet  it  may  still  be  true.  And  possibly  we  may 
have  observed  a  similar  seeming  failure  in  the  ex- 
perience of  other  persons  for  the  same  reason. 
But,  in  a  larger  survey,  taking  in  all  our  varied 
experiences  and  those  of  other  persons  within  our 
knowledge,  do  we  find  that  the  comforting  assur- 
ance of  this  verse  is  practically  justified?  And,  it 
should  be  added,  a  negative  experience,  for  the 
reason  above  named, —  that  is,  failure  to  meet  the 
hard  experiences  of  life  in  the  right  way, —  might 
be  positive  evidence  of  the  practical  truth  of  the 
verse. 

In  seeking  an  answer  to  this  question,  two  points 
definitely  present  themselves  which  can  be  best 
considered  separately:  first,  the  common  perplexi- 
ties, trials,  and  hardships  which  beset  human  life 
and  which  make  a  large  part  of  our  "valley  of 
shadows " ;  second,  the  dark  fact  of  death,  which 
has  caused  human  life  on  earth  to  be  called  "a  vale 
of  tears." 

First,  as  to  the  trials,  hardships,  difficulties  with 
which  human  life  has  to  contend.  We  must  here 
revert,  primarily,  to  what  I  have  called,  in  these 
lectures,  the  universal   plan  for  the  education  and 


98  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

civilization  of  mankind  by  a  gradual  process  of 
adjustment  of  human  life  to  the  great  world-ener- 
gies. We  saw  that,  by  the  very  conditions  of  this 
process  of  educational  adjustment,  man's  wants 
could  not  be  provided  for  by  a  cosseting  Provi- 
dence outside  of  himself,  with  no  effort  or  thought 
of  his  own;  but  rather  the  conditions  necessitated 
the  putting  forth  of  human  faculty  in  a  strenuous 
struggle  with  difificulties.  We  saw,  indeed,  that 
the  Eternal  is  leader,  a  provider,  whose  sources  of 
supply  are  to  be  depended  upon,  an  Energy  from 
which  all  finite  energies  are  derived,  but  that  for 
man  the  leading  is  through  the  inward  constraining 
force  of  reason  and  conscience  and  the  moral  senti- 
ments, and  the  provision  largely  through  his  own 
disciplined  ability  to  care  for  his  own  life  and 
destiny  by  adjusting  himself  to  nature's  forces  and 
laws.  It  is  not  for  us,  using  the  methods  of  sci- 
ence, to  ask  why  things  pertaining  to  the  education 
and  progress  of  mankind  are  thus  and  so.  We 
have  simply  to  note  the  facts  and  follow  the  law  of 
their  trend.  And  among  the  most  conspicuous 
facts  of  human  history  we  cannot  fail  to  note  that, 
in  order  to  gratify  his  desires  and  even  to  maintain 
his  existence,  man  has  had  to  grapple  with  difficul- 
ties, to  contend  against  obstacles,  to  fight  often, 
with  hand  and  brain,  against  nature's  forces  threat- 
ening to  quench  his  life  before  he  can  subject  them 
to  his  service.  He  has  been  compelled  to  labor,  to 
self-exertion,  to  the  agile  use  of  physical  and  men- 
tal faculties  by  the  very  conditions  of   life.      And, 


THE    VALLEY    OF    SHADOWS  99 

as  a  result,  we  must  note  the  enlargement  of  his 
life,  the  increased  development  of  his  faculties,  the 
growth  of  physical  skill,  of  brain  power,  and  of 
moral  enlightenment;  in  a  word,  the  result  is  man 
educated  from  animalism  into  a  civilized  and  ethi- 
cal being.  The  obstacles,  the  hardships,  have  been 
the  anvils  on  which  his  faculties  have  been  shar- 
pened and  shaped  to  larger  uses,  and  personal  char- 
acter has  been  hammered  to  a  firmer  strength  and 
tempered  with  spiritual  refinement. 

All  this  history  tells  us.  Adverse  circumstances 
—  that  is,  seemingly  adverse —  are  not  man's  ene- 
mies, but  may  be  his  friends.  It  depends  on  how 
he  adjusts  himself  to  them.  But,  leaving  history, 
do  you  not  know  of  men  and  women,  contemporary 
with  yourselves,  who  have  harmoniously  and  suc- 
cessfully made  that  adjustment?  men  and  women 
who  have  converted  the  very  obstacles  in  their 
careers  into  stepping-stones  to  some  higher  suc- 
cess? men  and  women  in  whose  experience  trial 
and  tragedy  may  seem  to  have  had  a  larger  place 
than  joy,  but  who  from  all  their  conflicts,  from 
their  baptisms  as  if  with  fire,  have  only  come  forth 
stronger  and  purer  for  useful  deeds,  the  serenity 
of  their  faith  unshaken,  their  humane  sympathies 
quickened,  their  goodness  heightened  and  glorified? 
How  can  such  persons  have  any  fear  of  evil  cir- 
cumstances? They  know  the  Eternal  to  be  with 
them,  a  Power  stronger  than  circumstance  or  fate; 
and  the  Eternal  is,  indeed,  with  them,  the  very 
sustenance  and  life  of  their  goodness  and  of  their 


lOO  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

noble  serenity  and  spiritual  beauty.  Again  I  ask, 
Have  not  you  known  such  persons?  And  have  you 
not  at  times  been  conscious  of  the  same  Power 
moving  and  working  within  your  own  minds,  to 
transform  some  hardship  or  sorrow  in  your  experi- 
ence into  moral  goodness  and  a  deepening  of  char- 
acter? The  way  of  life,  which  is  the  way  of 
righteousness,  often  must  pass  through  a  valley  of 
shadows,  dark,  dispiriting,  deathly.  Yet  it  is  the 
way  of  life  still,  and  the  way  of  safety,  for  all  who 
have  learned  faithfulness  to  the  law  of  life,  which 
is  righteousness.  For  them  the  very  difficulties 
create  in  the  soul  a  more  robust  fibre,  and  they 
emerge  from  the  valley  of  darkness  into  light  with 
a  clearer  vision  and  a  firmer  step  for  ascending 
life's  heights.  In  their  hearts  they  carry  the  very 
presence-chamber  of  the  Eternal,  with  his  sceptre 
and  his  staff;  and  their  lives  are  adjusted  to 
organic  unity  with  his  ways  and  for  arriving  at  his 
high  results. 

It  would  be  easy  to  fill  large  space  with  special 
illustrations  of  this  truth  of  the  transformation  of 
hard  circumstances  into  noble  character.  But  I 
must  limit  myself  to  two  or  three  that  are  fresh- 
est in  my  notice.  And  I  retain  those  that  were 
freshest  at  the  time  of  my  writing.  The  morning 
paper  of  the  day  on  which  I  wrote  brought  two 
despatches,  which  in  opposite  ways  hint  the  lesson. 
The  first  is  a  telegraphic  despatch  from  Texas  tell- 
ing the  story  of  four  suicides  there,  in  the  same 
town,    on  the  same   day.     Two  young  women  and 


THE  VALLEY  OF  SHADOWS  lOI 

two  young  men,  their  lovers,  had  done  this  desper- 
ate act.  One  of  the  four  lived  long  enough  after 
the  suicidal  deed  to  say  that  they  had  taken  a 
pledge  to  one  another  to  end  life  together  at  their 
separate  homes,  but  within  the  same  twenty-four 
hours;  that  they  had  tried  to  live  true  and  honest 
lives,  but  the  world  was  against  them,  and  the 
harder  they  tried  the  worse  things  became;  that 
they  were  too  poor  for  marriage,  yet  felt  that  life 
was  not  worth  living  apart,  and  so  they  resolved 
to  end  it  all,  together.  This  was  a  case  of  lament- 
able failure  to  make  right  adjustment  to  life's 
conditions.  These  young  people  lacked  those 
qualities  of  high  courage  and  confidence  which  are 
able  to  convert  failures  into  success  and  to  wrest 
from  calamities  the  materials  of  moral  victory. 
Instead  of  facing  difficulties  and  conquering  them, 
they  slipped  unsummoned  ignominiously  from  the 
field.  The  other  item  was  the  story  of  the  painful 
catastrophe  which  has  befallen  a  young  professor  in 
Michigan  University.  Bending  over  a  chemical 
experiment  he  was  conducting  in  his  laboratory,  an 
accidental  explosion  so  injured  his  eyes  that  both 
of  them  had  to  be  removed  at  once.  Only  twenty- 
eight  years  old,  with  already  a  high  reputation  as  a 
chemist  and  a  brilliant  promise  before  him!  We 
can  hardly  conceive  of  a  greater  calamity  befalling 
an  eager  student  of  natural  science.  Yet  he  is 
likely  to  prove  himself  of  the  stuff  from  which 
heroic  character  as  well  as  science  comes.  He  has 
before  him  for  inspiration  the  noble,  well-rounded 


I02  THE   TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

life  of  England's  late  postmaster-general  and  dis- 
tinguished political  economist  and  reformer,  Henry 
Fawcett,  who  at  twenty-five  years  totally  lost  his 
sight  by  an  accident,  but  who  thereby  turned 
his  retirement  into  studies  which  have  blessed  his 
country  and  the  world.  Yet  the  greatest  blessing 
of  his  life  comes  from  the  example  he  has  left  of 
a  man  undaunted  by  such  a  catastrophe,  pursuing 
his  life-purposes  firmly  and  calmly  against  such 
difficulties,  and,  withal,  achieving  a  character  as 
beloved  as  his  abilities  and  usefulness  were  hon- 
ored. Our  own  honored  countryman  and  brilliant 
historian,  Francis  Parkman,  against  similar  almost 
insurmountable  obstacles,  followed  unswervingly  a 
purpose  formed  at  seventeen  years  and  achieved  his 
world-famous  life  career. 

Another  illustration  is  brought  to  my  memory. 
Some  of  you  here  may  recall  that  touching  incident 
which  happened  at  the  visiting  committee's  re- 
ception at  the  Massachusetts  Kindergarten  for  the 
Blind  last  year.  Helen  Keller,  a  girl  of  then 
eleven  years,  whose  name  is  becoming  as  well 
known  in  Boston  and  Massachusetts  as  was  that  of 
Laura  Bridgman, —  a  girl  who  is  blind  and  was 
a  deaf-mute,  but  who  has  been  taught  to  speak, 
though  she  hears  no  sound,  and  who  has  a  genius 
for  sympathy  and  love,  —  was  the  most  impressive 
speaker  of  the  occasion.  She  had  taken  a  most 
active  interest  in  the  forlorn  condition  of  Tommy 
Stringer,  a  little  fellow  of  five  years,  a  deaf-mute 
and    blind    like    herself,    who    had    recently    been 


THE  VALLEY  OF  SHADOWS  IO3 

brought  to  the  institution,  but  whose  parents  had 
no  means  to  provide  a  special  teacher  for  him. 
Helen  has  taken  it  upon  herself  to  raise  the  funds 
for  his  education;  and,  in  her  little  speech  appeal- 
ing for  his  needs,  this  girl  who  hears  no  sound, 
who  sees  no  object  in  this  fair  world,  said :  "  Life 
is  sweet  and  beautiful  when  we  have  the  wonderful 
key  of  language  to  unlock  all  its  secrets.  Educate 
Tommy,  and  give  him  this  key."  But  this  was  not 
all.  Dr.  Edward  Everett  Hale  followed,  saying, 
at  close,  "  Let  every  man  and  woman,  every  boy 
and  girl,  give  something."  Then  there  was  a 
pause,  broken  by  a  sob  from  a  little  boy,  one  of  the 
littlest  of  them  all,  who  could  not  repress  his  feel- 
ings. A  teacher,  who  was  his  shepherding  crook 
and  staff,  gathered  the  little  lamb  in  her  arms  to 
comfort  him.  He  buried  his  blind  eyes  against 
her  neck,  but  he  was  only  blind.  He  had  heard 
the  speeches,  and  he  could  tell  his  trouble;  and, 
when  the  teacher  coaxed  it  from  him,  it  was  that 
he  "had  no  money  to  give  for  little  Tommy." 
Thus  this  blind  baby,  scarcely  able  to  talk  plainly, 
made  the  most  eloquent  appeal  of  all.  When  the 
meeting  broke  up,  and  it  was  told  from  one  to  an- 
other what  was  the  cause  of  the  child's  grief,  his 
sob  was  converted  into  subscriptions;  and  one  lady 
from  a  distant  Western  city,  a  stranger  to  most  of 
the  people  there,  a  Hebrew  woman,  asked  the 
privilege  of  being  an  annual  subscriber  to  the 
kindergarten  in  behalf  of  Tommy  Stringer,  and  in 
response  to  his   still   smaller  companion  in  blind- 


104  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

ness,  whose  heart  had  broken  into  a  sob  because  he 
couldn't  help  Tommy  himself.  For  those  of  us 
who  have  all  our  senses  it  seems  as  if  there  could 
be  no  valley  of  shadows  deeper  in  its  gloom  than 
that  through  which  these  little  blind  children  are 
doomed  to  walk  all  their  days.  Yet  what  a  light 
of  sympathetic  love  streamed  from  their  sightless 
eyes  through  all  that  company!  a  light  and  warmth 
of  love  which  revealed  strangers'  hearts  to  each 
other  as  of  one  blood  and  kindred,  and  touched 
a  sentiment  within  differing  creeds  and  faiths 
which  melted  them  into  one  religion.  Thus  the 
calamity  that  afflicts  these  little  children  becomes 
the  nurture  of  humane  and  spiritual  life  in  the 
mature  men  and  women  who  are  drawn  to  care 
for  them;  and  the  ennobled  life  of  these  benefac- 
tors is  again  reflected  back  as  the  light  of  love, 
which  penetrates  even  under  the  dark  shadows  of 
blindness,  so  that  those  whose  eyes  see  not  and 
whose  ears  hear  not  can  yet  feel  that  "life  is  sweet 
and  beautiful  "  for  them.  To  have  effected  this 
interchange  of  human  sympathies,  to  have  lifted 
life  up  to  this  level  of  unselfish  love  and  devotion, 
I  had  almost  said  it  were  worth  while  that  the 
calamity  should  come.  Yet  that  I  will  not  say. 
This,  nevertheless,  is  true:  the  calamity  having 
come,  the  dark  and  the  tragic  intermingling  every- 
where with  the  good  in  our  human  lot,  we  can  see 
how,  in  this  and  in  other  of  life's  hardships,  the 
great  world-purpose  takes  them  up  and  weaves 
them  into  the  world's  benefit.      Wonderful   is  that 


THE    VALLEY    OF    SHADOWS  IO5 

power  of  compensation  in  nature  by  which  one  of 
the  senses  adjusts  itself,  by  increase  of  scope  and 
refinement,  to  do  the  work  of  other  senses  that  may 
be  enfeebled  or  disabled!  And  wonderful,  to  the 
height  of  the  miraculous,  is  the  educational  skill 
which,  working  with  this  facility  of  nature,  can 
give  to  the  sense  of  touch,  as  it  were,  sight  and 
hearing,  and  cause  the  blind  and  deaf-mute  to 
articulate,  to  speak,  and  rationally  converse!  It  is 
as  if  the  Eternal  Power  had  said:  "My  intent  shall 
not  be  balked  by  any  calamity  that  may  close 
the  eye  or  the  ear.  I  will  give  eye  and  ear  to  the 
sense  of  feeling,  and  so  cause  the  tongue  of  the 
dumb  to  shout  for  joy;  and  thus  shall  my  blind 
ones  see  and  my  deaf  hear  and  my  dumb  speak. 
Only  I  want  men  and  women  who  are  wise,  loving, 
and  patient,  to  be  my  agents  for  working  this  mir- 
acle of  scientific  skill  and  philanthropy,  whereby 
I  may  guide  and  comfort  those  who  walk  in  the 
lonely  valleys  of  darkness  and  desolation." 

So,  too,  of  that  more  special  calamity  which  our 
verse  in  the  original  does  not  name,  yet  suggests, 
—  the  fact  of  death.  Death  is  one  of  the  mysteries 
which  has  made  the  whole  world  akin.  Strangers 
elsewhere,  around  an  open  grave  we  join  hands  as 
brothers.  All  nations,  ages,  faiths,  are  linked 
together  by  this  bond  of  our  common  humanity; 
and  it  is  a  bond  of  humanity  in  the  finer  sense 
of  that  word  as  well  as  in  the  sense  of  a  common 
physical  nature  that  is  mortal.  Whether  in  palace 
or  in  hut,   death   is  the   same   mysterious,   solemn 


I06  THE   TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

messenger,  before  whom  all  alike  must  bow.  A 
world  watched  at  President  Garfield's  death-bed, 
and  again  at  the  Emperor  Frederick's  of  Germany, 
and  at  General  Grant's.  And  in  General  Grant's 
great  career  there  was  no  soldierly  heroism  which 
so  ennobled  his  fame  and  endeared  him  to  mankind 
as  did  that  self-controlled,  serene,  and  masterful 
march  in  his  last  year  against  the  forces  of  Death, 
in  order  that,  before  the  inevitable  hour  when  he 
must  surrender  his  pen  to  the  advancing  foe,  he 
might  see  his  self-imposed  task  complete,  and 
leave  to  his  family  and  to  the  historic  annals  of 
his  country  the  rich  legacy  of  his  Autobiography. 
The  sympathetic  interest  of  a  world  surrounds  such 
deaths.  But  the  same  regardful  anxiety  watches 
somewhere,  though  confined  to  one  room  and  a  few 
neighbors,  the  slowly  wasting  life  of  some  poor 
sewing-woman,  whose  heroic  combat  for  life  no 
fame  tells  to  the  world.  Death  equalizes  all, 
despite  unequal  monuments  in  graveyards.  "The 
small  and  the  great  are  there  together,  and  the 
clods  of  the  valley  shall  be  alike  sweet  to  them." 

The  Hebrews  appear  to  have  had  no  such  terror 
of  death  as  certain  Christian  theologies  have  culti- 
vated. Their  system  of  rewards  and  retributions 
was  practically  limited  to  this  world.  For  the 
greater  part  of  their  national  history  they  mani- 
fested no  specific  belief  in  immortality.  Not  until 
their  contact  with  the  Persians,  in  the  time  of  their 
captivity  to  these  people  of  the  old  Zend  religion, 
did  they  imbibe  that  doctrine.     The  doctrine  ap- 


THE   VALLEY    OF    SHADOWS  10/ 

pears  in  the  Apocryphal  Old  Testament,  written 
after  the  Captivity,  but  not,  except  by  a  few  vague 
intimations,  in  the  canonical  Hebrew  Scriptures. 
As  a  substitute  for  spiritual  and  personal  immortal- 
ity in  another  world,  the  Hebrews  seemed  to  have 
faith  in  a  national  immortality  for  Israel  in  this 
world.  And  that  kind  of  immortal  existence,  like 
the  present  life  of  the  nation,  they  associated  with 
righteousness.  Long  life  was  one  of  the  promised 
rewards  of  righteousness.  Death  they  regarded  as 
an  evil,  not  for  any  torments  that  would  follow  it, 
but  because  it  was  antagonistic  to  life;  and,  as  the 
enemy  of  life,  they  associated  it  with  unrighteous- 
ness. Sometimes  it  seems  as  if  they  believed  that, 
if  they  could  attain  to  perfect  righteousness,  they 
would  overcome  death  and  then  have  power  to  live 
forever. 

But,  so  far  as  this  verse  of  our  Psalm  is  con- 
cerned, deathly  things  and  death  itself  were  put 
with  other  mysterious  trials  and  calamities  as  not 
to  be  feared,  since  the  Eternal  was  present  to  guide 
safely  through  them.  That  Power  could  be  trusted 
to  make  all  things,  if  not  clear,  at  least  right  and 
sure.  And  in  its  essential  features  this  belief 
finds  practical  justification  to-day.  Let  death  come 
into  our  homes  when  and  in  what  form  it  will,  and, 
however  deep  may  be  the  grief  that  comes  in  its 
train,  it  is  yet  one  of  the  inevitable  facts  to  which 
we  are  to  so  adjust  our  characters  and  lives  as  not 
to  sit  in  dismay  and  lamentation  over  the  evil  of  it, 
but  to  draw  forth  all  the  compensating  moral  and 


I08  THE    TWENTV-THIRD    PSALM 

spiritual  good  which  may  be  hidden  in  the  sad  ex- 
perience. It  is  no  fable,  no  myth,  that  the  Eternal 
is  with  us  in  those  hours, —  with  us  in  the  silence 
and  under  the  shadows, —  and  with  us,  as  rational 
thought  to-day  assures  us,  not  so  much  as  a  far-off 
celestial  guide  and  a  mysterious,  overseeing  Provi- 
dence, as  the  old  theologies  have  been  wont  to 
teach,  but  veritably  within  us  as  a  form  of  strength, 
sharing  and  enduring  with  us  our  burden,  and  nerv- 
ing us  with  courage  to  meet  the  new  responsibili- 
ties and  the  strange  and  bereft  condition  of  life. 
We  know,  too,  in  this  modern  time,  that  death  in 
itself  is  no  calamity,  that  it  is  no  abnormal  intru- 
sion into  nature's  order,  but  a  natural  stage  in  the 
unfolding  of  that  order  itself,  at  one  with  nat- 
ure's organic  law  and  with  all  her  maturing  proc- 
esses. Death,  when  it  comes  in  old  age,  in  accord- 
ance with  natural  law,  is  like  the  harvesting  of 
ripened  grain.  Cicero  likens  it  to  the  gentle  touch 
of  the  fingers  on  perfectly  ripe  fruit,  which  requires 
no  violence  to  pluck  it.  It  is  then  one  of  the 
beautiful,  orderly  mysteries  in  the  great  procession 
of  the  occasionally  resting,  but  all-abounding  and 
never-ending  forces  of  life.  Nor  would  it  be  an 
entirely  visionary  and  irrational  expectation  to  look 
forward  to  a  time,  centuries  and  centuries  hence, 
when  mankind  shall  attain  to  a  height  of  civiliza- 
tion so  enlightened  and  moral,  and  shall  have  so 
learned  and  obeyed  the  laws  of  life  and  health,  that 
disease  will  be  practically  conquered,  and  death 
will   come  painlessly  as  the  natural   limit  of    the 


THE  VALLEY  OF  SHADOWS  IO9 

physical  organism  in  old  age.  There  is  actually 
some  scientific  ground  for  such  an  expectation  in 
the  fact  that  the  tables  of  longevity,  computed  for 
the  business  of  life  insurance,  show  a  perceptible 
increase  in  the  average  length  of  human  life  with 
the  progress  of  civilization  and  the  better  observ- 
ance of  sanitary  laws.  Death,  so  considered,  would 
be  no  catastrophe,  but  one  kind  of  culmination  in 
nature's  order.  But  premature  death  —  death  in 
youth  or  in  early  maturity  —  is  a  calamity  usually 
to  surviving  friends,  and  may  be  a  calamity  and 
loss  to  the  world.  Thus  coming,  death  may  plunge 
bereaved  families  from  the  fairest  heights  of  hope 
and  happiness  to  the  depths  of  despairing  agony. 
But  even  then  the  tragedy  may  be  met  so  as  to  draw 
from  it  those  higher  ministries  that  may  transform 
grief,  not  into  joy,  but  into  noble  service  and 
chastened  beauty  of  character.  Have  we  not  all 
witnessed  such  transformations? 

In  every  such  company  as  this  are  likely  to  be 
those  who  have  recently  been  walking  in  the  valley 
of  death's  shadows,  and  are  still  gazing  wistfully 
after  the  forms  of  beloved  ones  who  have  passed 
through  it.  Others  among  us  may  be  watching 
with  even  a  more  anxious  tenderness  the  tremulous 
steps  of  friends  and  kindred  who  may  be  entering 
it.  All  of  us,  day  by  day,  are  approaching  that 
valley,  and  none  of  us  can  evade  it.  Yet,  which- 
ever be  our  case,  let  us  not  look  on  death  as  "the 
king  of  terrors,"  nor  think  that  our  valley  of 
shadows  is  only  a  blot  of  darkness  on  the  universe; 


I  lO  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

but  rather  may  we  see  how  it  connects  outward 
and  upward  with  a  world  of  everlasting  light  and 
life  and  beauty,  with  bright  mountain-tops  and 
clear  skies. 

The  monk,  Francis  of  Assisi,  as  the  end  of  his 
life  came  near,  addressed  Death  as  his  "sister," 
This  amiable  and  accomplished  saint  lived  in  such 
close,  familiar  intercourse  with  nature  that  he  was 
wont  to  call  all  natural  objects  his  kindred:  the 
sun,  the  moon,  the  grass,  plants,  water,  and  light 
and  fire  and  air  were  his  brothers  and  sisters. 
They  were  all  forms  of  the  Eternal;  what  could  he 
fear?  So,  as  his  eyes  grew  tired  and  dim,  he  wel- 
comed his  "sister  Death,"  and  put  his  hand  trust- 
fully in  hers,  that  she  might  lead  him  in  his  dark- 
ness; but  down  into  his  darkness  shone  the  eyes  of 
his  brothers,  the  stars,  and  over  and  around  all 
was  spread  the  light  of  the  Eternal,  undimmed: 
and,   lo!  his  darkness  was  day. 


THE   TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM    IN   THE 
NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 


THE   OVERFLOWING    BOUNTY. 

"  Thou  preparest  a  table  before  me  in  the  presence  of  mine  ene- 
mies :    thou  anointest  my  head  with  oil ;    my  cup  runneth  over." 

On  reaching  this  verse  our  Psalmist  abruptly 
changes  his  metaphor.  He  abandons  the  imagery 
of  a  shepherd  leading  his  flock  for  that  of  a  host 
serving  his  guest.  Yet  the  poet's  thought  goes  on, 
rising  toward  its  climax  with  such  perfect  consist- 
ency that  an  ordinary  reader,  not  thinking  of 
critical  analysis,  is  not  likely  to  notice  the  sudden 
rhetorical  transition.  It  seems  as  if  the  pastoral 
figure  was  no  longer  adequate  to  the  emotion  which 
stirred  the  poet's  soul,  as  he  thought  of  the  bounti- 
ful provision  made  by  Jehovah  for  human  needs  and 
happiness.  After  the  pastures  with  their  tender 
grass  and  refreshing  waters  of  quietness,  after  the 
journeyings,  whether  by  safe  and  plain  paths  or  by 
ways  of  menacing  and  deathly  dangers  under  safe 
guidance,  there  was  for  a  flock  no  other  natural 
conclusion  than  the  sheltering  folds  for  rest. 
But    the    dangers    which    had    been    safely    passed 


112  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

suggested  to  the  poet's  imagination  a  more  demon- 
stratively triumphant  issue.  The  hostile  difficul- 
ties depicted  in  the  preceding  verse  gave  the 
cue-thought  to  that  victory  over  enemies  which  this 
verse  celebrates;  and  the  happy  exit  from  the  val- 
ley of  shadows  was  cause  for  a  scene  of  festive 
rejoicing  for  which  the  narrow  conditions  of  the 
sheep-cot  and  the  small  wants  of  dumb  creatures 
now  seeking  only  rest  and  sleep  furnished  no  mate- 
rials. Hence  the  figure  of  a  hospitable  house- 
holder caring  for  guests  occurred  to  the  Psalmist's 
poetic  vision  as  offering  more  ample  conveyance 
for  his  enlarged  and  heightening  thought. 

This  was  a  favorite  figure  of  speech  with  the 
Hebrews,  as  the  New  Testament,  as  well  as  the 
Old,  bears  witness.  Hospitality  was,  and  still  is, 
one  of  the  supreme  Oriental  tests  of  religion  and 
humanity.  No  finer  metaphor  was  available  for 
carrying  to  the  Hebrew  mind  an  idea  of  Jehovah's 
devoted  and  inexhaustible  care  than  to  present  a 
picture  of  the  head  of  a  household  caring  with  im- 
partial and  lavish  generosity  for  his  guests.  To 
such  a  picture  the  poet  turned  —  perhaps  uncon- 
sciously—  for  continuing  his  parable.  The  flock 
of  dumb  creatures  was  displaced  by  a  vision  of 
tired  and  needy  human  travellers.  They,  too,  may 
have  had  to  journey  not  only  by  fatiguing  but  by 
dangerous  roads.  In  narrow  and  dark  defiles  ene- 
mies may  have  waited  in  ambush  for  them,  and 
may  have  even  harassed  and  pursued  them  beyond 
the  perilous  pass  and  out  upon  the  open  plains  to 


THE    OVERFLOWING    BOUNTY  113 

the  very  gates  of  refuge  which  opened  to  welcome 
them.  Once  within,  the  sentiments  of  honor  and 
humanity  were  their  protectors.  We  may  imagine 
a  Hebrew  patriarch,  with  his  numerous  household 
around  him,  as  the  host.  The  law  of  Moses  bade 
him  to  treat  with  equal  justice  the  native-born  and 
the  stranger  within  his  gates.  He  was  even  to 
love  the  stranger  as  a  brother,  and  the  law  of  hos- 
pitality bade  him  quickly  to  supply  the  stranger's 
needs.  His  hospitality  was  unstinted  in  profusion 
and  untainted  by  suspicion.  Even  in  actual  sight 
of  pursuing  enemies  a  table  might  be  spread  with 
all  needful  and  bountiful  viands.  If  it  was  a  time 
of  feasting,  the  traveller  became  as  one  of  the 
guests.  After  the  Eastern  custom,  the  host  might 
even  anoint  his  head  with  perfumed  oil,  for  re- 
freshment and  honor  and  in  token  of  hospitable 
welcome.  In  the  midst  of  such  a  banquet  the 
weary  and  harassed  traveller,  safe  from  his  perils, 
surrounded  by  such  friendly  protection,  might  in- 
deed exclaim  that  the  cup  of  his  felicity  was  filled 
to  overflowing. 

And  the  overflowing  bounty  of  Jehovah's  provi- 
sion and  care  for  Israel  was  what  this  verse  of  the 
Psalm  said  to  the  Hebrews.  Remember  that  the 
whole  Psalm  was  a  song  of  patriotism,  a  song  of 
religious,  spiritual  patriotism,  not  a  celebration  of 
the  sentiment,  "Our  country,  right  or  wrong,"  but 
a  song  intended  to  inspire  the  highest  patriotic 
hope  and  courage,  and  faith  in  the  law  of  right- 
eousness as  the  basis  of  national  prosperity.      The 


114  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

theme  all  through  was  trust  in  Jehovah  as  guide 
and  protector,  as  supplier  of  wants  and  rescuer 
from  dangers;  and  in  this  verse  the  thought  as- 
cends to  the  contemplation  of  Jehovah's  over- 
whelming resources  for  meeting  every  possible 
strait.  Whatever  might  be  Israel's  needs,  dangers, 
or  distresses,  there  was  One  at  hand,  so  preached 
this  prophet-poet,  whose  power  and  good  will  were 
manifest  as  even  more  than  ample  to  carry  the 
nation  safely  through  any  emergency.  Jehovah 
was  described  in  Hebrew  poetry  not  only  as  a 
Being  eternal  in  power  and  awful  in  majesty,  but 
as  one  whose  works  superabounded  in  goodness  and 
gladness.  He  was  said  to  make  the  very  earth 
rejoice,  to  crown  the  years  with  goodness,  to  cause 
the  valleys  to  stand  so  thick  with  corn  that  they 
shout  and  sing  for  joy,  to  make  the  ground  soft 
with  showers,  and  to  bless  the  increase  of  it.  His 
very  steps  dropped  richness;  and  the  fields  of  the 
wood  rejoiced  before  him,  rejoiced  because  he 
Cometh  to  give  justice  to  the  earth  and  to  judge  the 
people  with  his  truth. 

In  such  picturesque  language  did  Israel's  poets 
try  to  impress  their  idea  of  the  character  of  Je- 
hovah as  the  all-bountiful  giver  of  good,  and  this 
verse  of  the  Twenty-third  Psalm  is  an  illustration 
of  the  same  attempt.  By  its  structure  the  verse 
concentrates  attention  on  three  points  of  the  all- 
dominating  Bounty.  Under  the  figure  of  a  hospi- 
table and  beneficent  householder,  supreme  in  power 
as   in   goodness,    Jehovah    is   represented,    first,    as 


THE    OVERFLOWING    BOUNTY  I  I  5 

revealing  his  abounding  friendliness  and  munifi- 
cence, even  in  the  very  sight  of  enemies,  as  if  defy- 
ing their  pursuit  and  annulling  their  power.  The 
singer  had  doubtless  in  mind,  as  his  hearer  would 
have,  the  actual  and  almost  omnipresent  armed  foes 
by  whom  the  Hebrews  were  surrounded,  and  whom 
they  had  to  meet,  and,  it  must  be  admitted,  were 
not  reluctant  to  meet,  in  stratagem  and  in  battle, 
in  order  to  preserve  their  national  existence.  The 
verse  was  designed  to  inspirit  and  nerve  Israel  for 
the  hard  tasks  of  war  by  presenting  a  picture  of  the 
abundant  rewards  of  peace  at  the  end  of  the  con- 
flict. The  bountiful  table  spread  in  the  face  of  the 
foe  was  a  symbol  of  the  coming  national  prosperity 
and  wealth, —  a  vision  which  poet  and  prophet 
never  ceased  to  hold  before  the  eyes  of  the  people, 
however  hard-pressed  the  people  were  by  actual 
distress.  And,  indirectly,  the  phrase  "in  the 
presence  of  enemies  "  might  stand  for  any  difficul- 
ties and  obstacles  that  hindered  the  realization  of 
this  vision,  for  any  kind  of  hostility  or  terror 
which  had  been  met  in  the  "valley  of  shadows" 
and  triumphantly  vanquished.  The  same  Power 
that  had  led  safely  through  those  dangers  now 
turned  the  dangers  into  a  banquet  of  rejoicing. 
This  was  the  purposed  result  of  the  struggle  and 
its  interpreter.  The  feast  represented  that  bounty 
of  good  things  which  the  overcoming  of  every  kind 
of  antagonism  had  made  possible;  but,  lest  it 
should  be  said  that  the  Hebrew  idea  of  prosperity 
was  too  exclusively  material,  it  must  not  be  forgot- 


Il6  THE    TWENTV-THIRD    PSALM 

ten  that  one  of  the  essential  conditions  —  the 
fundamental  condition,  indeed  —  of  arriving  at  this 
goal  of  national  felicity  was  obedience  to  the 
law  of  righteousness.  Only  paths  of  righteousness 
were  the  paths  of  safety,  which  led  finally  to  this 
great  salvation  and  joy,  of  which  the  feast  was  em- 
blematic. Thus  did  the  Hebrew  poets  and  proph- 
ets teach  in  their  highest  moods. 

Second,  under  the  metaphor  of  the  host  of  a 
hospitable  house,  the  Psalmist  represented  Jehovah 
as  specially  honoring  Israel  as  his  guest,  in  pict- 
uring him  as  observing  the  Oriental  custom  of 
anointing  a  guest's  head  with  oil.  This  was  a  ser- 
vice which  a  host  might  commit  to  the  hands  of  a 
hired  servant.  But,  if  he  wished  particularly  to 
do  honor  to  any  guest,  the  host  performed  this 
office  himself,  not  in  the  spirit,  however,  of  con- 
descension and  patronage  so  much  as  in  the  spirit 
of  friendly  equality  and  fraternal  fellowship.  He 
brought  forth  his  costliest  ointment,  spiced  and 
perfumed  with  the  most  precious  substances,  and 
with  his  own  hands  both  honored  and  refreshed 
his  guest  by  this  menial  service.  This  anointing 
of  the  head  was  the  same  ceremony  which  was  in 
use  as  a  prominent  feature  in  the  consecration  of  a 
king  or  a  high  priest  to  his  office.  In  its  generic 
meaning  it  simply  signified  a  high  token  of  honor 
and  regard.  In  its  more  specific  meaning  it  sym- 
bolized the  bestowal  of  the  highest  human  authority 
upon  those  who  received  it.  The  language  of  the 
poet  here  was  bold  —  bold   almost  to  the  point  of 


THE    OVERFLOWING    BOUNTY  11/ 

audacity  —  when  we  consider  that  it  was  Jehovah, 
the  Eternal  Power,  who  was  from  everlasting  to 
everlasting,  and  whose  throne  was  regarded  as  es- 
tablished above  the  heavens,  and  whose  majesty 
was  unapproachable,  who  was  also  described  as  a 
host  hastening  to  do  honor  to  a  guest  and  person- 
ally serving  his  wants.  But  to  the  Hebrew  there 
was  little  or  no  incongruity  between  the  two  ideas. 
His  Deity,  it  is  true,  in  the  most  abstract  concep- 
tion, was  a  far-off  inaccessible  sovereignty;  but  he 
was  also  conceived  as  very  human,  even  more  so 
than  would  accord  with  the  ordinary  Christian  con- 
ception, and,  in  his  human  aspects,  as  coming 
very  ck)se  to  man  and  serving  him,  though  in 
miraculous  ways,  yet  in  very  humble  capacities. 
He  it  was  who  was  believed  to  have  corralled 
quails  for  the  Israelites  when  in  their  hunger  they 
cried  for  flesh,  and  to  have  kept  the  poor  widow's 
barrel  of  meal  and  cruse  of  oil  replenished  while 
she  harbored  the  fugitive  prophet  Elijah.  A  Di- 
vine Being  who  was  believed  to  do  these  things 
would  suffer  no  loss  of  dignity  in  Hebrew  eyes, 
though  he  should  be  described  as  a  host  honoring 
his  guests  as   if  he  were  their  servant. 

Third,  the  Psalmist's  comparison  of  Jehovah's 
bounty  to  an  overflowing  cup  meant  that  the  provi- 
sion made  for  the  Hebrew  people  by  their  eternal 
care-taker  was  not  limited  nor  measured  by  their 
actual  wants;  that  the  divine  resources  so  over- 
flowed all  present  needs  that  there  should  be  no 
anxiety  as  to  the  future.     This  point  is  so  simple 


Il8  THE   TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

that  it  requires  no  further  explanation.  True,  the 
Hebrew  believed  that  miracle  was  one  of  Jehovah's 
resources  for  eking  out  the  shortcomings  of  nat- 
ure, or  for  resisting  nature's  disasters  when  they 
pressed  too  hard.  But  to  the  Hebrew  mind — to 
the  mind  of  every  primitive  people,  indeed  —  it 
was  more  natural  to  believe  in  miracle  than  in  un- 
varying law.  The  verse,  however,  makes  no  sug- 
gestion of  miracle.  And,  in  any  case,  the  main 
lesson  of  this  point  was  the  fact  that  Jehovah's 
bountiful  provision  for  Israel  was  overflowing  and 
immeasurable,  and  not  how  the  beneficent  power 
was  exercised. 

Now  remember  that  Jehovah,  the  most  familiar 
Hebrew  name  for  Deity,  may  be  rendered  by  the 
phrase  "The  Eternal"  better,  perhaps,  than  by 
any  other  English  expression.  It  means  Eternal 
Existence  and  the  power  therewith  implied.  A 
good  paraphrase  of  its  signification  may  be  found, 
as  I  have  already  in  these  lectures  pointed  out,  in 
Herbert  Spencer's  phrases,  the  Ultimate  Reality, 
with  its  infinite  and  eternal  Energy.  Hence, 
denude  our  Hebrew  poet's  thought  of  its  meta- 
phorical dress,  and  he  was  saying  something  like 
this:  "Though  I  am  continually  in  the  presence  of 
forces  which  are  inimical  to  life,  thou,  O  Eternal, 
art  my  bountiful  provider;  thou  honorest  me  by 
serving  me;  yea,  thy  bounty  lavishly  outruns  all 
my  needs."  This  is  personification,  it  is  true. 
But  every  one  of  the  three  things  here  asserted,  the 
doctrine  of  science  might   and  does  say  to-day  of 


THE    OVERFLOWING    BOUNTY  I  IQ 

the  Eternal  Energy  from  which  all  things  proceed. 
When  Science  turns  poet,  as  it  sometimes  does  in 
the  fervid  utterance  of  such  a  man  as  Professor 
Tyndall,  it  personifies  and  says  these  things  to  the 
Eternal  Energy. 

But,  again,  as  in  the  preceding  lecture,  it  is  not 
so  much  philosophical  justification  for  these  state- 
ments as  practical  justification  that  needs  at  the 
present  time  to  be  most  set  forth  and  illustrated. 
The  enemies  of  human  happiness  and  life,  even  in 
the  midst  of  our  most  advanced  civilization,  are  so 
many  and  so  persistent  and  strong  that  it  some- 
times seems  very  hard  to  believe  in  any  bounti- 
ful provision  for  human  needs.  The  enemies,  the 
hostile  forces,  are  present  and  very  close,  while 
the  supplying  bounty  may  seem  far  off,  beyond 
reach  and  call,  so  distant  as  not  to  be  realized. 
Just  now,  especially,  is  a  most  opportune  time  to 
consider  the  first  of  the  three  statements  of  our 
verse  from  a  practical  point  of  view.  The  casual- 
ties from  natural  causes,  the  devastations  to  prop- 
erty and  life,  within  the  last  year  have  been 
appalling,  to  say  nothing  of  those  catastrophes  in 
which  human  agency  has  been  more  apparent. 
Floods  and  tornadoes,  mine  explosions  and  drown- 
ings, earthquakes  and  conflagrations,  have  been 
casting  human  beings  into  the  abysses  of  death  by 
the  thousands.  And  where,  many  persons  have 
asked,  amidst  such  scenes  of  terror,  devastation, 
and  destruction,  is  the  careful  and  bountiful  Pro- 
vider?    Why  does  not  the  Eternal  Power  intervene 


I20  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

to  save  human  beings  and  human  possessions  from 
such  fearful  disasters? 

In  attempting  an  answer  to  this  question,  we 
must  again  remind  ourselves  that  the  Eternal 
Power  may  shepherd  and  beneficently  provide  for 
mankind,  though  not  on  the  cosseting  plan  of  a 
special  Providence  which  would  intervene  to  snatch 
us  from  this  or  that  danger.  It  is  the  ground  plan 
of  this  universe  that  human  beings  should  become 
a  providence  to  themselves ;  that  the  Eternal  Power 
works  within  and  through  their  own  faculties  by 
natural  law;  that  thus  it  provides  and  cares  for 
them,  while  all  around  them,  as  well  as  within 
them,  are  the  mighty  forces  on  which  they  are  to 
draw  for  sustenance  and  benefit.  Whether  the  sus- 
tenance and  benefit  will  be  formed  in  individual 
cases  depends  on  the  measure  of  adjustment  to 
these  great  world-forces.  That  the  welfare  is 
found  in  the  experience  of  mankind  at  large  there 
can  be  no  question.  For  this  process  of  adjust- 
ment of  finite  life,  through  finite  perception  and 
effort,  to  the  infinite  resources  and  forces  that  per- 
vade and  surround  it,  is  the  school  of  education  for 
the  human  race  from  savagery  to  civilization,  and 
to  all  the  power,  prosperity,  happiness,  and  well- 
being  which  an  enlightened  and  moral  civilization 
implies.  And  all  the  time,  while  mankind  are 
staggering  under  the  difficulties  which  confront 
them,  in  presence  of  the  very  enemies  of  their 
prosperity  and  peace,  this  infinite  bounty  of  natural 
resource  is  offered,  awaiting  and  soliciting  man's 


THE    OVERFLOWING    BOUNTY  121 

adjusting  effort  to  partake  of  it.  While  we  may 
be  reading,  every  spring-time,  of  destruction  and 
death  by  flood  and  gale,  Nature  weaves  around  us, 
alike  under  storm  as  under  sunshine,  her  yearly 
garment  of  life  and  beauty.  And,  when  the  deso- 
lating winter  storms  come,  Nature  is  not  dead. 
In  the  tiny,  strongly  cased  buds  on  yonder  leafless 
trees  are  safely  garnered  all  the  vital  hopes  of  next 
year's  bounty  of  foliage  and  fruit.  Dissect  if  you 
can  a  single  snowflake  of  the  storm,  and  you 
will  find  it  a  house  of  perfect  crystals  of  amazing 
beauty.  Seed-time  and  harvest  arrive  in  their 
order,  not  with  such  certainty  of  measure  as  to 
make  man  careless  on  his  side  of  the  needed  mut- 
ual service,  but  by  laws  that  never  fail.  Some- 
where the  earth  produces,  or  may  be  made  to 
produce,  enough  for  all  who  anywhere  live  upon  it. 
Under  the  ground  are  stored  treasures  of  wealth, 
ready  at  man's  transforming  touch  to  be  converted 
into  heat  and  light  and  motive  power.  And  in 
what  secret  cells  of  earth  or  of  air  is  hidden  that 
mightiest  and  most  marvellous  of  nature's  forces, 
which,  wherever  hidden,  man  has  discovered,  but 
is  only  just  learning  its  vast  capabilities  of  ser- 
vice? The  thunderbolt,  drawn  from  that  secret 
chamber,  is  becoming  man's  right  hand.  The 
lightning's  spark  is  steed  for  our  loaded  cars. 
And  the  same  power,  under  a  surgeon's  scientific 
skill,  has  removed  a  tumor  from  a  baby's  lip  as 
painlessly  and  tenderly  as  if  done  by  a  mother's 
kiss.      It  seems  as  if  everywhere  the  Power  of  the 


122  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

Eternal  in  nature  were  appealingly  saying  to  man, 
"  Learn  how  to  use  me,  and  see  how  I  will  bless 
you!" 

For  the  truth  of  these  lessons  of  our  Psalm  I 
like  to  find  the  most  recent  illustrations  possible; 
and  there  came  to  me,  as  I  wrote,  an  apt  illustra- 
tion of  this  point  we  are  now  considering,  in  the 
number,  just  then  at  hand,  of  that  little  newspaper 
called  the  Southern  Letter^  which  is  printed  by  the 
colored  students  at  the  Tuskegee  Normal  School, 
Alabama,  a  school  where  the  president  and 
teachers  are  also  all  of  the  colored  race.  The 
little  sheet  comes  to  some  of  you,  perhaps;  but  it 
is  so  very  small  and  modest  that  I  suspect  it  is 
quite  likely  to  go  into  the  waste-basket  unnoticed. 
But,  humble  as  it  is  in  appearance,  I  always  find 
in  it  some  suggestive  hint  of  the  way  in  which 
good  is  gradually  overcoming  evil  in  this  world. 
First,  at  the  head  of  it,  there  stands  the  excellent 
motto,  "Devoted  to  the  Education  of  the  Hand, 
Head,  and  Heart."  And  this  is  what  that  school 
is  doing  down  there  for  the  colored  people,  right 
in  the  presence  of  their  old  enemies,  who  once  held 
them  in  the  ignorance  of  slavery,  but  who  are  now 
being  converted  into  friends.  But  the  thing  which 
specially  struck  my  attention  in  that  particular 
number  of  the  little  paper  was  the  story  of  the 
experience  of  one  of  the  graduates  of  the  school, 
which  he  sends  back  to  the  principal  in  a  letter. 
The  young  man  went  out  into  a  country  region  in 
the  autumn  to  begin  a  school  where  there  was  no 


THE    OVERFLOWING    BOUNTY  123 

school-house  nor  school  organization.  For  several 
weeks  the  teaching  was  done  in  a  room  which  was 
a  dining-room  and  lodging-room  and  kitchen,  yet 
sometimes  there  were  fifty  scholars.  But  in  six 
weeks  he  had  managed,  with  a  little  help,  to  build 
a  school-house,  for  which  the  forests  around  fur- 
nished ample  material.  And  this  is  the  way  he 
tells  the  story  of  the  building  and  its  uses:  "I  had 
to  skin  most  of  the  logs  myself  and  help  lay  them 
up,  help  get  out  the  board  timber  and  get  the 
boards,  help  buy  the  lumber,  and  had  to  pick 
nearly  one-fourth  of  the  nails  out  of  an  ash-bed, 
where  a  cotton-gin  house  had  recently  burned 
down.  The  house  was  without  heater  or  chimney; 
but  we  made  a  fire  in  the  yard,  and  gladly  turned 
first  one  and  then  the  other  side  to  it,  when  it  got 
too  cold  in  the  house.  I  spoke  to  the  people  there 
one  night  in  each  week  last  month,  and  feel  satis- 
fied that  much  good  was  done.  I  have  organized  a 
Sunday-school  there,  which  has  about  fifty  mem- 
bers, most  of  whom  are  in  earnest.  Many  of  them 
are  parents.  We  have  had  singing,  too;  and  I 
have  talked  to  them  on  Sunday  afternoons,  when 
sometimes  nearly  a  hundred  people  would  turn  out. 
I  have  thought  of  you  and  your  Commencement 
address  to  us  very  often.  I  thought  of  [what  you 
said  of]  Emerson's  looking  for  himself.  But  I 
found  it  necessary  for  me  not  to  look  for,  but  to 
lose  myself.  To  do  this  was  a  hard  task.  'Tis  not 
a  perfect  accomplishment  yet.  With  this  one  thing 
accomplished,  I  can  climb  above  any  other  barrier." 


124  '^'HE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

There  is  a  man  who  has  learned  how  to  adjust 
himself  to  nature's  provision  and  laws  for  human 
needs;  and  so  he  has  got  at  the  heart  of  the  Infi- 
nite Bounty.  He  does  not  sit  down  to  lament  over 
the  afflicted  condition  of  his  people,  he  does  not 
stop  to  ask  why  the  Almighty  does  not  do  this  or 
that  for  their  relief;  but  he  takes  hold  of  the  forces 
of  the  Eternal  himself,  and  wields  them  for  his 
people's  good.  In  the  presence  of  obstacles  that 
would  daunt  the  spirit  of  most  of  us,  he  finds  a 
way  to  the  Infinite  Beneficence  and  makes  himself 
its  agent  for  his  people's  redemption. 

Abundant  justification  may  also  be  found  in 
human  experience  for  the  modern  lessons  of  the 
remaining  parts  of  our  verse.  The  parable  of  a 
host  anointing  his  guest  with  oil  signifies,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  bestowal  of  something  beyond  the 
needful  supplies  for  physical  existence.  It  means 
the  rendering  of  honor  and  regard  by  personal  ser- 
vice. It  recognizes  among  the  obligations  of  hos- 
pitality not  merely  the  satisfaction  of  bodily  wants, 
but  the  sentiments  and  amenities  of  affection.  It 
means  something  that  touches  the  heart  and  solaces 
the  spirit  and  honors  the  person.  These  are  the 
refinements  of  hospitality,  like  the  perfume  and 
beauty  of  flowers.  They  may  be  costly,  but  there 
are  needs  of  human  beings  that  are  higher  than  the 
stomach's  appetites.  Jesus,  notwithstanding  his 
ready  rebuke  for  all  insincere  and  ostentatious  dis- 
play, and  his  compassion  for  the  wants  of  the  poor, 
allowed   the  woman   to   break   the  precious  box  of 


THE    OVERFLOWING    BOUNTY  12$ 

ointment  to  express  her  personal  regard,  though 
the  ointment  might  have  been  sold  and  the  price 
given  to  the  poor.  There  are  other  hungers  be- 
sides that  of  the  flesh, —  hungers  of  mind  and 
heart,  which  measure  the  advance  of  the  higher 
civilization.  And  these,  too,  the  Eternal  Power, 
under  which  they  are  developed,  supplies.  The 
Infinite  Bounty  covers  the  needs  of  heart  and 
soul  no  less  than  those  of  the  body.  Nature  serves 
man's  physical  wants;  but  she  does  it  with  an  in- 
finite beauty  and  grace,  that  gradually  charms  the 
savage  in  him  into  civilization,  and  causes  the 
brute   instinct  to  blossom   into  soul. 

Nature,  indeed,  in  this  and  in  manifold  ways,  is 
man's  constant  servant;  and  hence  we  are  literally 
correct  when  we  say  that  the  Eternal  Power,  which 
works  in  and  through  nature,  is  man's  servant  as 
well  as  educator.  A  few  years  ago  a  scientific 
man  wrote  an  essay  to  show  the  probability  that  at 
som£  time  the  sun's  heat  might  be  mechanically 
applied  for  the  pumping  of  water  from  underneath 
the  sands  of  the  great  deserts  of  Africa,  thus  fertil- 
izing them  into  rich  productiveness.  And  thus, 
he  added,  that  great  luminary  that  has  been  wor- 
shipped as  a  god  would  become  man's  servant.  A 
god  transformed  into  a  servant  seemed  a  startling 
suggestion.  And  yet  the  Eternal  Power  whom  all 
enlightened  minds  worship  as  Deity,  the  God  of 
reason  and  science,  is  now  and  constantly  the  ser- 
vant of  man.  If  the  earth  in  any  way  serves  our 
human  wants,    if    the  sun,    by  which  we  live  and 


126  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

move  and  have  our  being  and  exert  all  our  power, 
serves  us,  if  the  forces  of  nature,  through  the  air 
we  breathe,  the  electricity  we  put  to  use,  and  the 
gravity  that  holds  us  to  the  globe,  serve  us,  then 
a  fortiori  must  the   Infinite  and   Eternal   Power,  of 
which  earth  and  sun  and  all  nature's  forces  are  but 
a  partial  manifestation,  be  our  servant.      "A  serv- 
ing Deity !  "     This  thought  which  our  verse  sug- 
gests   may    well    command    our    attention    a    little 
longer.      And,    if  there  be  apprehension   lest   this 
conception  of  Deity  shall  be  wanting  in  the  attri- 
bute of  "parental  love,"  where,    let  me  ask,  shall 
we  find  the  highest  expression  and  demonstration  of 
love?     In  that  effervescence  of  passional  emotion 
which,    within    the    breast    of    its    possessor,    self- 
regarding,  bubbles  and  sings  of   its  own  felicity? 
or  is   it   in    that  other-regarding  feeling  which  at 
once  goes  forth  in  acts  of  service  for  the  being  that 
is  loved?     When  does  a  mother  show  the  supreme 
devotion   of  her  affection?     In   those  moments  of 
rapture  when   she   hugs   her  children   and   devours 
them  with  kisses  and  wants  to   lavish  sweetmeats 
upon  them?  or  is  it  in  the  long  hours  and  weary- 
ing days  and  lengthening  years,  when,  forgetful  of 
self,  she  is  spending  her  energies,  her  very  life,  in 
serving  their  manifold  wants,  on  her  spent  care  and 
strength  carrying  them   safely  through  the  various 
crises    of    their    ignorance    and    weakness,    though 
often  having  to  exchange  the  rapture  of  personal 
tenderness  for  the  disciplines  of  that  larger,  wiser 
law  which   is   no  respecter   of   persons?      "Love," 


THE    OVERFLOWING    BOUNTY  12/ 

said  the  old  writer,  "  is  the  keeping  of  the  laws  of 
wisdom."  Nor  should  this  proposition  of  science 
startle  Christendom,  which,  through  all  its  cen- 
turies, has  been  taught  that  the  infinite  God 
humbled  himself  and  came  down  to  earth,  and  took 
the  form  of  a  servant  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  who 
washed  his  disciples'  feet.  Only  the  service  is 
not  through  one  man  only  but  through  manifold 
men,  and  not  through  humanity  only,  but  through 
nature.  Service  and  honor  are  rendered  to  man 
by  the  Eternal,  to  the  end  that  in  m^n  there  is 
created  a  being  who,  in  turn,  honors  and  serves  and 
carries  forward  the  Eternal  purpose.  Sang  another 
of  the  Hebrew  poets:  "When  I  consider  the 
heavens,  the  work  of  thy  power,  and  the  stars 
which  thou  hast  ordained,  what  is  man  that  thou 
art  mindful  of  him,  and  the  son  of  man  that  thou 
carest  for  him?  Yet  thou  hast  made  him  little 
lower  than  the  gods;  thou  has  crowned  him  with 
glory  and  honor;  thou  has  given  him  dominion 
over  the  work  of  thy  hands."  What  the  Psalmist 
here  says  of  man  being  invested  with  dignity  and 
honor  as  a  sub-ruler  in  the  affairs  of  earth,  holding 
a  responsible  part  of  the  divine  sovereignty,  a 
rational  philosophy  and  science  would  indorse 
to-day. 

And,  finally,  the  bounty  of  nature  overruns  all 
actual  needs.  The  Eternal  measures  out  its  sup- 
plies by  no  stinted  hand.  Man  may  regulate  pro- 
duction and  distribution,  but  Nature  will  fill  his 
cup  to  overflowing   if  he  will  let  her.      He  himself 


128  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

must  watch  against  her  wastes  in  some  parts  of 
the  globe,  and  in  other  parts  liis  skill  must  do 
the  work  of  climate.  But  Nature's  storehouse  of 
various  bounty  for  man's  use  is  inexhaustible. 
What  luxury  of  power  and  of  life  on  which  he  may 
draw!  What  wealth  of  mineral  and  chemical  re- 
sources! What  teeming  fields  and  forests  in  the 
vegetable  world!  How  the  seeds  are  scattered  on 
the  winds  and  storms !  Even  the  birds  of  the  air 
are  their  carriers  and  sowers.  They  may  fall  by 
the  wayside,  or  among  thorns,  or  on  stony  places; 
but  Nature  provides  against  disaster  by  the  extrava- 
gance of  her  sowing.  Beneath  the  sea,  on  Alpine 
snows,  over  hoary  rocks,  is  wrought  the  miracle 
of  the  all-abounding  principle  of  life.  I  picked 
flowers  last  June  which  were  wedged  close  between 
the  rocks  at  the  top  of  Pike's  Peak.  Make  a  ruin; 
and,  let  it  be  her  own  or  man's,  Nature  will  grad- 
ually weave  her  green  mantle  gracefully  around  it. 
Go  into  wilds,  where  man's  foot  has  seldom  trod 
nor  his  eyes  gazed,  and  behold  there,  unseen  be- 
fore, unknown,  richness  on  richness  and  beauty  on 
beauty,  of  the  living  wonder.  "Beauty  is  its  own 
excuse  for  being,"  and  life  ever  transcends  the 
powers  of  death.  It  is  the  overflowing  cup  of  the 
Infinite  Bounty  which  in  wilderness  and  on  plains, 
by  the  roadside  and  in  our  gardens,  spills  and  scat- 
ters the  seeds  from  which  comes  the  beauty  that 
charms  our  eyes  and  gladdens  our  hearts.  This 
world  has  much  of  darkness  and  evil.  It  has 
storms  of  rough  trial,  and  many  foes  of  happiness 


THE    OVERFLOWING    BOUNTY  1 29 

and  enemies  of  life.  Yet  the  Eternal  welcomes 
and  honors  this  little  storm-tossed  earth  as  a  guest 
and  friend,  and  provides  for  it  such  a  bounty  of  all 
the  things  which  make  for  life  and  light  and  good- 
ness and  gladness  that  these  finally  may  master  all 
their  foes,  and  overcome  the  trial  and  the  evil  and 
the  darkness.  The  word  "bounty"  is  apt  to  sug- 
gest only  material  good  things.  But  the  Eternal 
Bounty  covers  all  realms,  all  needs  of  human  life, 
in  its  highest  ranges.  What  inexhaustible  riches 
of  truth  to  reward  and  delight  the  eager  intellect  I 
What  joyous  aesthetic  gratifications  for  the  eye  with 
a  cultured  mind  behind  it!  What  opportunities 
for  affection  and  goodness  in  which  the  heart  may 
revel!  Have  you  not  seen  some  persons  whose 
characters  have  an  inexhaustible  radiance  of  good- 
ness, like  the  sparkling  of  perpetual  fountains,  and 
whose  daily  life  is  an  overflowing  bounty  of  sun- 
shine from  the  soul? 

When  I  wrote,  a  disappointing  spring  day  turned 
to  a  cold,  heavy  rain.  But  the  rain  had  not  wholly 
ceased  when  I  heard  the  sparrows  bravely  chirrup- 
ing, and  the  robins  singing  their  evening  hymns. 
Despite  the  rough  storm  they  found  the  joy  of 
existence.  So  the  human  soul,  through  the  stress 
and  storm  of  life,  may  so  adjust  itself  to  the  ways 
of  the  Eternal  as  to  learn  the  harmonies  of  benefi- 
cent service,  and  thus  break  into  the  harmonies 
of  joy  and  of  song. 


THE   TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM    IN   THE 
NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 


VI. 


THE   ETERNAL   GOODNESS   AND   HUMAN 

DESTINY. 

"  Surely  goodness  and  mercy  shall  follow  me  all  the  days  of  my 
life :   and  I  will  dwell  in  the  house  of  the  Lord  for  ever." 

In  this  exalted  rapture  of  perfect  confidence  and 
hope,  the  sentiment  of  the  Twenty-third  Psalm 
reaches  both  its  logical  and  poetical  climax.  Each 
successive  verse  of  the  six  has  expressed  some  defi- 
nite expansion  or  rise  of  the  poet's  emotional 
thought;  but  thus  far  everything  has  been  included 
within  the  limits  of  actual  experience.  The  pres- 
ent tense  has  prevailed.  Jehovah  is  the  good  and 
all-powerful  shepherd.  He  leadeth  into  the  green 
pastures  and  by  the  restful  waters.  He  guideth  in 
the  straight  paths  of  safety.  In  the  deadly  valley 
of  shadows  it  is  his  power  that  supports  and  com- 
forts. And,  in  the  very  presence  of  hostile  forces, 
his  friendly  service  overflows  in  bountiful  provi- 
sion. The  Psalmist  has  spoken  from  the  basis  of 
experience,  and  not,  so  far  as  appears  in  the  text 
of  his  song,  from  ?in.y  a  priori  theological  assump- 


ETERNAL    GOODNESS    AND    HUMAN    DESTINY       I3I 

tions.  His  appeal  has  been  simply  to  common 
facts  for  testing  the  truth  of  his  patriotic  and  as- 
suring declarations.  "Look  around  you,"  is  the 
implied  injunction  of  his  words:  "Behold  how 
Jehovah  is  doing  all  these  things  for  his  people." 
And  then,  from  this  basis  of  experience,  the  poet 
turns,  with  serene  and  perfect  assurance,  to  face 
the  future;  for  (this  is  his  inference)  the  same 
bountiful  guidance  and  care  can  certainly  be  de- 
pended on  for  continuance.  That  is  his  sole  rea- 
soning. It  is  the  simplicity  of  the  child's  logic. 
And  yet  it  is  the  solid  foundation  on  which  all 
science  rests:  the  order  of  things  observed  in  the 
natural  world  in  the  past  can  be  depended  on  in  the 
future.  The  sun  in  the  glory  of  its  power  may  be 
expected  to  rise  to-morrow  because  it  has  risen,  by 
calculable  law,  in  innumerable  yesterdays.  It  is 
by  a  similar  mental  procedure  that  the  Psalmist 
rises,  in  this  triumphant  ending  of  his  paean  to 
Jehovah  as  a  Shepherd,  to  the  exulting  exclama- 
tion: "  Surely  goodness  and  mercy  will  follow  me 
all  the  days  of  my  life:  and  I  shall  dwell  in  the 
house  of  Jehovah  forever." 

I  may  say  in  passing  that  the  common  version 
stands  in  no  urgent  need  of  revision  here  for  the 
sake  of  accuracy,  except  that  it  would  be  better 
to  transpose  the  auxiliaries  "shall  "  and  "will  "  in 
the  two  divisions  of  the  verse.  The  Hebrew  word 
translated  "mercy,"  I  may  add,  is  the  same  word 
that  is  often  rendered  by  the  richer  phrase  "lov- 
ing-kindness";   and    the    word    translated    "good- 


132  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

ness  "  carries  from  its  primary  root  a  meaning  of 
outward  prosperity  and  good  fortune.  And  this 
latter  idea  is  one  of  the  rhetorical  links  which 
connects  the  verse  back  with  the  immediately 
preceding  verse  depicting  Jehovah's  bounty.  An- 
other and  more  obvious  link  is  in  the  expression 
"house  of  Jehovah," —  "I  shall  dwell  in  the  house 
of  the  Lord  for  ever."  The  preceding  verse  had 
given  a  picture  of  the  gracious  and  bounteous  hos- 
pitality of  a  householder  to  a  guest.  That  thought 
is  now  expanded  and  carried  forward  to  the  se- 
curity and  beneficence  which  must  be  enjoyed  by 
one  who  is  to  dwell,  not  transiently,  but  for  all 
time,  in  Jehovah's  house.  (I  have  previously  ex- 
plained that  the  Psalm  is  one  of  steps  or  degrees, 
each  verse  rising  upon  some  suggestive  thought 
of  the  preceding.)  And  these  two  heightened 
thoughts,  to  which  I  have  just  referred,  make  the 
steps  by  which  the  poet  ascends  to  his  final  and 
sublime  contemplation  of  a  beneficent  Providence 
unbounded  by  time  and  including  the  whole  future 
of  Israel  in  its  scope.  To  generalize  the  lesson 
of  the  verse,  we  may  say  that  it  consists  of  these 
twin  ideas:  the  Eternal  Goodness  and  its  as- 
surances for  human  destiny. 

But  neither  the  Hebrew  poet  nor  the  Hebrew 
theologian  was  accustomed  to  regard  such  ideas  as 
these  in  any  abstract  or  metaphysical  fashion. 
The  Hebrew  religion  kept  close  to  nature  and 
close  to  this  world.  Even  in  its  childlike  faith 
in  the  supernatural,  the  supernatural  agencies  were 


ETERNAL    GOODNESS    AND    HUMAN    DESTINY      1 33 

conceived  in  very  human  and  earthly  form.  If  the 
Hebrews  talked  of  eternity,  it  was  an  eternity  not 
severed  nor  distinguished  from  but  including  time. 
If  they  thought  of  the  continuance  of  human  exist- 
ence, it  was  existence  lengthened  out  indefinitely 
on  this  earth.  In  the  very  verse  we  are  consider- 
ing the  phrase  translated  "forever"  meant  literally 
"length  of  days."  It  was  only  a  more  intensified 
form  of  the  expression  rendered  in  the  first  part  of 
the  verse  by  the  words  "all  the  days  of  my  life"; 
and  a  literal  rendering  of  the  last  half  of  the  verse 
would  be  "I  shall  dwell  in  the  house  of  Jehovah  to 
length  of  days."  It  is  the  same  term  which  occurs 
in  Proverbs  as  representing  one  of  the  gifts  of 
Wisdom:  "Length  of  days  is  in  her  right  hand." 
Yet  this  phrase  seems  to  have  come  nearer  than  any 
other  in  the  canonical  Hebrew  Scriptures  to  taking 
the  place  of  the  word  for  eternal  duration  in  the 
Christian  Scriptures.  In  truth  (as  shown  in  the 
fourth  lecture),  for  the  greater  part  of  the  time  of 
their  national  existence,  the  Hebrews  manifested 
no  specific  belief  in  the  doctrine  of  immortality, 
at  least  in  the  Christian  sense  of  it. 

To  the  Hebrew,  moreover,  the  earth  was  a  goodly 
world;  and  he  had  no  unwholesome,  impatient 
desire  to  depart  from  it.  Its  evils,  which  he  by 
no  means  ignored,  were,  he  believed,  the  conse- 
quence of  human  departure  from  the  law  of  right- 
eousness. Its  destructive  forces,  its  afflictive  ills, 
its  deaths  and  terrors,  were  to  him  the  penalty 
for  violating  Jehovah's  commandments.     Thus  the 


134  "^^E    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

garden  of  Eden,  he  believed,  had  been  lost,  and 
all  after  woes  had  fallen  on  mankind.  But  still 
Jehovah  was  regarded  as  no  implacable  ruler.  Let 
the  people  only  return  to  his  commandments  and 
keep  them,  and  he  would  abundantly  pardon. 
With  long  life  would  he  satisfy  them  and  show 
them  his  salvation.  He  would  deliver  them  from 
all  their  distresses,  and  cause  them  to  bless  his 
name  forever.  It  was  not,  therefore,  because  the 
Hebrew  was  blind  to  the  evils  of  the  world,  and 
did  not  suffer  his  full  share  of  earthly  troubles, 
that  he  still  thought  this  earth  a  goodly  world. 
In  fact,  he  was  always  under  the  harrow  of  some 
trouble.  Yet  despite  all  the  evil  he  could  sing, 
"Oh,  that  men  would  praise  Jehovah  for  his  good- 
ness and  for  his  wonderful  works  to  the  children  of 


men!" 


It  is  quite  certain,  too,  that,  when  the  Hebrew 
spoke  of  the  "house  of  the  Lord,"  he  was  not 
thinking  of  a  "mansion  in  the  skies."  The  house 
of  the  Lord  for  him  meant  the  holy  temple  of  wor- 
ship. This  reference  to  the  house  of  the  Lord  is 
one  of  the  evidences  which  modern  criticism  has 
pointed  out  for  proof  that  the  Twenty-third  Psalm 
was  not  written  by  King  David,  and  could  not  have 
been  written  by  any  one  until  after  David's  son, 
King  Solomon,  had  built  the  great  temple.  Be- 
fore that  event  the  ark  of  the  sacred  covenant  had 
been  sheltered  and  protected  in  a  tent  (or  taber- 
nacle), which  was  transported  from  place  to  place. 
But  when  Solomon    built  the  costly  temple,   that 


ETERNAL    GOODNESS    AND    HUMAN    DESTINY      1 35 

became  by  pre-eminence  in  Israel's  view  Jehovah's 
house.  The  sacred  covenant  was  deposited  there, 
in  a  place  of  safety,  as  it  was  believed,  for  all 
time.  There  was  the  innermost  Holy  of  holies  of 
the  Hebrew  faith.  To  the  devout  believer  the 
solidity  and  magnificence  of  the  temple  became 
symbolic  of  national  stability  and  prosperity.  The 
patriotic  sentiments  of  security  and  dominion 
mingled  with  and  enhanced  the  joys  of  worship  for 
those  who  entered  there  for  that  sacred  service. 
To  the  faithful  ones  of  Israel  the  act  of  worship 
in  this  great  temple  was  the  transcendent  act  of 
human  life.  There  as  nowhere  else  they  came  into 
the  immediate  presence  of  Jehovah, —  or  so  they 
believed  and  felt.  There  they  acknowledged  his 
power  and  received  assurances  of  his  aid  and  bless- 
ing. Felicitous,  indeed,  they  thought,  must  be 
the  lot  of  those  who  dwelt  there  as  chosen  servants 
of  Jehovah  for  performing  the  manifold  offices  of 
the  sacred  place.  Some  such  picture  as  this  of 
the  grandeur  of  the  outward  temple  and  of  its  holy 
service  doubtless  presented  itself  to  the  Psalmist's 
poetic  vision.  Yet,  doubtless,  also,  it  symbolized 
to  him,  as  it  would  to  the  most  spiritually  intelli- 
gent among  his  contemporaries,  not,  indeed,  all 
that  finer  culmination  of  the  worshipful  attitude 
which  is  "in  spirit  and  in  truth,  without  refer- 
ence to  any  technicalities  of  place  and  time,  but  at 
least  an  idea  of  a  constant  nearness  to  Jehovah's 
presence  through  acts  of  righteousness,  and  of  that 
service  of  him  which  is  rendered  by  the  clean  heart 


136  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

and  the  just  deed.  For,  however  magnificent  in 
its  surroundings  and  formalities  was  the  outward 
worship  of  the  Hebrews,  they  had  prophets  who  de- 
nounced the  oblations  and  prayers  and  praises, 
even  of  this  sacred  temple,  as  an  abomination  and 
mockery,  unless  the  worshippers  brought  justice 
and  mercy  and  a  contrite  heart  among  their  offer- 
ings. And  no  religion,  more  clearly  and  strongly 
than  the  Hebrew,  has  ever  set  forth  obedience  to 
the  law  of  righteousness  as  a  requisite  condition, 
individually  and  nationally,  of  acceptance  with 
Deity  and  of  achieving  all  the  most  desirable 
objects  of  human  existence.  In  righteousness,  and 
in  righteousness  only,  was  the  way  of  salvation,  of 
individual  and  national  health,  of  prosperity  and 
confidence,  of  strength  and  peace:  yes,  righteous- 
ness was  the  very  law  and  condition  of  life  itself 
and  of  all  life's  noblest  felicities.  This  is  the 
constant  injunction  of  Hebrew  Proverb  and  Prophet 
and  Psalm.  And  the  connection  of  righteousness 
(or  right  conduct)  with  the  forces  of  life  is  one  of 
the  prominent  points  in  modern  science  and  scien- 
tific ethics,  as  was  specially  shown  in  the  third 
lecture. 

These  two  great  thoughts  of  the  Hebrew  faith 
unite,  then,  to  make  the  final  climax  of  this 
Twenty-third  Psalm :  first,  Jehovah,  the  eternal 
power,  is  a  good  power  to  be  depended  upon  per- 
petually; second,  in  that  Goodness  is  full  assur- 
ance of  a  good  destiny  for  man  through  a  life 
allied  with   the  very  life  and    power  of    Jehovah. 


ETERNAL    GOODNESS    AND    HUMAN    DESTINY      1 3/ 

Now,  in  this  statement  of  these  two  root- 
thoughts  I  believe  I  have  put  nothing  which  the 
Hebrew  singer  would  not  himself  have  accepted. 
Into  what  details  of  theological  or  mythological 
belief  and  expression,  fitting  the  intelligence  of 
the  time,  he  might  have  carried  these  thoughts,  or 
how  he  might  have  dressed  them  in  the  fashion  of 
his  age  and  race,  is  another  question,  and  one 
which  we  have  no  occasion  now  to  consider.  Our 
question  is  whether  these  root-thoughts  themselves 
can  be  justified  in  the  light  of  modern  intelligence. 
What  has  the  scientific  philosophy  which  is  in 
vogue  in  this  closing  decade  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury to  say  with  regard  to  the  validity  of  these  two 
ideas?  That  is  the  question  with  which  we  are 
most  concerned. 

And,  first,  it  is  remarkable  how  little  change  is 
needed  in  the  statement  of  these  ideas,  as  just 
made,  to  make  the  statement  itself  seem  modern. 
In  the  place  of  the  Hebrew  appellation  "Je- 
hovah," let  us  (as  I  have  before  asked  you  in  these 
lectures)  put  the  English  phrase  which  is  its  near- 
est equivalent,  "The  Eternal,"  and  we  have  a 
statement  which  might  be  taken  from  a  religious 
treatise  written  from  the  standpoint  of  the  most 
advanced  scientific  philosophy.  Put  still  more  suc- 
cinctly, our  statement  might  then  stand  thus: 
"The  Eternal  is  to  be  depended  upon  as  a  power 
for  goodness,  and  in  that  goodness  man  has  assur- 
ance of  a  good  destiny." 

And,  in  the  next  place,  you  will  not  fail  to  note 


138  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

that  here  are  precisely  the  two  great  modern  prob- 
lems of  religion, —  the  problem  of  God  and  the 
problem  of  immortality.  For  it  is  no  secret  to  the 
reading  and  thinking  portion  of  mankind  that  these 
fundamental  problems  of  religion  and  philosophy 
have  been  opened  afresh  to-day  as  the  result  of 
advancing  science  in  every  direction,  and  it  is  not 
rationally  probable  that  questions  thus  opened  will 
ever  be  settled  again  in  precisely  the  old  way. 

Not  in  the  old  way;  and  yet  I  maintain  that 
these  questions  will  be  rationally  settled  in  a  way 
that  will  vindicate  and  confirm  these  two  great  and 
essential  points  of  religious  faith, —  the  Goodness 
of  the  Eternal,  and  for  man  a  good  and  worthy 
destiny.  And  these  are  the  two  important  points 
now  to  be  considered. 

As  to  the  first,  I  frankly  admit  and  affirm  that, 
unless  it  can  be  legitimately  maintained  that  the 
Eternal  Energy  of  the  universe,  which  science 
recognizes  as  the  Source  of  all  phenomena,  is  pur- 
posive in  its  action  and  toward  results  intelligible 
and  beneficent,  we  shall  have  no  Deity  left  worthy 
of  human  adoration  or  capable  of  imposing  or 
being  the  source  of  any  law,  intellectual  or  moral, 
which  man  could  or  should  obey.  If  the  Infinite 
and  Eternal  Energy  from  which  all  things  proceed, 
and  in  whose  presence  we  ever  are,  is  merely 
power, —  power  working  blindly,  wildly,  reck- 
lessly, at  mere  chance  and  hazard,  unconditioned  by 
anything  corresponding  to  intelligence  and  benevo- 
lerfce, —  then  it  is  not  a  Power  which  man's  intel- 


ETERNAL    GOODNESS    AND    HUMAN    DESTINY      1 39 

ligent  and  moral  nature  could  or  ought  to  regard 
with  feelings  of  admiration  and  affection.  Nor,  if 
the  Infinite  Energy  manifested  an  intelligible  aim, 
but  no  moral  quality,  could  it  attract  the  worship 
of  the  human  conscience  and  heart.  If  it  were  to 
manifest  an  intelligible  aim  directed  by  positive 
malevolence,  then  we  should  have  a  world  gov- 
erned by  diabolism,  but  no  Deity  to  whom  man 
would  have  any  occasion  to  sing  praises  or  direct 
his  aspirations.  Man  might  fear  such  a  being,  and 
try  to  evade  his  malevolent  power;  but  he  could 
not  count  it  a  blessing  to  dwell  with  such  a  being 
forever.  The  only  Deity  worthy  of  the  name,  the 
only  Deity,  in  fine,  whose  existence  is  worthy  of 
belief,  must  have  the  quality  of  goodness.  If  the 
Eternal  and  Infinite  Energy  of  the  universe,  of 
which  science  talks,  does  not  have  that  attribute, 
let  us  have  done  with  it  forever  as  a  name  or  sub- 
stitute for  Deity.  If  the  Eternal  Power  cannot  be 
seen  and  believed  to  be  a  good  power,  then  let  us 
candidly  confess  that  the  world  is  orphaned  of 
its  God. 

The  question,  then,  is.  Can  the  conception  of 
Deity  furnished  us  by  the  scientific  philosophy  of 
the  day  meet  the  test  of  this  requirement?  And 
I  answer,  unhesitatingly,  confidently,  in  the  affirm- 
ative. I  make  this  affirmative  answer,  fully  aware 
of  the  long  and  tragic  list  of  evils  which  may  be 
drawn  up  against  the  world  of  nature  and  against 
mankind.  I  remember  John  Stuart  Mill's  terrific 
indictment  of  what  he  calls  nature's    acts  of  de- 


140  THE   TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

monic  cruelty, —  acts  of  torturing,  maiming,  and 
killing,  for  doing  the  like  of  which  society  im- 
prisons or  hangs  human  beings.  Our  popular  jour- 
nalistic reporters  to-day  write  of  the  cruel  waves 
which  suck  down  to  death  in  our  harbors  a  man  or 
child,  and  of  the  merciless  tornado  or  the  demon  of 
fire  or  flood,  that  are  somewhere  slaughtering  our 
fellow-creatures  by  the  scores,  in  every  month  of 
the  year,  even  doing  it  in  the  season  when  Nature 
is  most  active  in  weaving  her  "coronation  robes" 
of  living  beauty.  Thus  even  the  very  terms  of 
these  newspaper  writers  are  accusations  of  pitiless 
cruelty  against  the  power  of  Nature.  And  con- 
sidering her  smiling  aspects  even  while  she  slays, 
they  might  compare  her  to  Rome's  bloody  tyrant, 
who  played  music  while  his  imperial  city  burned. 
But,  despite  all  this  which  can  be  charged  against 
Nature's  forces,  I  can  still  say,  with  the  Hebrew 
Psalmist,  that  the  Eternal  Power  is  not  power  only, 
but  has  the  moral  attribute  of  goodness.  I  could 
not,  however,  say  this  if  I  regarded  material  nature 
alone.  I  might  admire  and  stand  in  awe  before 
the  sublime  process  of  the  evolution  of  the  natural 
world,  as  science  declares  it,  from  the  primal  neb- 
ulous fire-mist  to  the  sun  in  the  heavens  and  the 
rose  in  your  gardens,  or  to  the  last  chrysanthemum 
blossom  of  the  season,  that  lingers  to  kiss  the  snow. 
My  imagination  would  be  entranced  by  the  beauty 
everywhere  manifest,  and  often  springing  from  the 
transformation  of  the  ugly  and  disgusting.  In  the 
orderly  adjustment  of    part  to  part,    in  the  grand 


ETERNAL    GOODNESS    AND    HUMAN    DESTINY       I4I 

sweep  of  the  forces,  in  the  unchangeable  stability 
of  the  laws,  in  the  slowly  evolved,  mighty  product 
and  spectacle  such  as  our  eyes  now  behold  in  the 
heavens  and  on  the  earth,  my  intellect  would  cer- 
tainly acknowledge  the  wondrous  evidences  of  a 
power  infinitely  greater  than,  but  kindred  to,  its 
own  intelligent  activity.  But,  if  nature  stopped 
there,  if  there  were  nothing  further,  I  might  hesi- 
tate to  affirm  a  moral  aim  of  the  Power  within  and 
behind  it,  or  might  even  deny  to  the  Power  a  moral 
quality.  But  nature  does  not  stop  there.  The 
material  world  is  not  the  whole  of  nature,  nor 
does  physical  science  cover  all  the  manifestations 
of  the  Power  within  and  behind  nature.  In  a 
large,  scientific  sense,  man  is  a  part  of  nature. 
He  sprang  from  her  loins.  By  the  same  great 
process  of  evolution  whereby  the  material  world 
came  into  existence  man  also  came, —  man,  indeed, 
with  his  early  brutalities,  his  primitive  savage 
degradations,  his  still  degrading  vices  and  crimes, 
but  man,  also,  with  his  moral  consciousness,  with 
his  as  yet  unmeasured  mental  and  moral  capabili- 
ties, with  his  sublime  ideals  of  rectitude  and 
benevolence,  with  his  pure,  unselfish  aspirations 
and  affections,  with  his  capacity  for  unlimited 
moral  and  mental  progress, —  in  short,  man  so  en- 
dowed with  mental  and  moral  gifts  as  to  be  able  to 
take  up  nature's  work  and  carry  it  forward  to  ideal 
aims,  such  as  material  nature  alone,  without  him, 
would  never  have  achieved.  We  are  not,  there- 
fore, to  separate  man  from  nature,  as   if  they  be- 


142  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

longed  to  two  different  and  antagonistic  worlds. 
This  was  an  ancient  view,  from  which  sprang  the 
theory  of  a  dual  universe  fought  for  by  two  supreme 
principles,  or  deities,  a  good  and  an  evil.  But 
to-day  it  is  not  a  question  of  two  deities  or  more, 
but  of  one  or  none.  If  science  has  made  any  de- 
liverance that  is  generally  accepted,  it  is  that  the 
Power  within  and  behind  all  the  manifoldness  of 
phenomena  is  unitary.  It  is  not  many,  nor  two, 
but  one.  Hence,  we  have  a  right  to  say  that, 
whatever  of  goodness  and  the  possibilities  of  good- 
ness appear  in  man,  these  reflect  back  their  glory 
upon  nature's  dark  ways,  and  show  the  whole 
process  of  evolution  to  have  a  moral  purport,  and 
disclose,  moreover,  that  the  Eternal  Power  within 
and  behind  the  process  is  working  toward  a  benefi- 
cent result.  Whence,  indeed,  can  come  the  moral 
consciousness  of  man,  with  all  its  sublime  actual- 
ities and  possibilities,  but  from  that  Infinite  and 
Eternal  Energy  from  which  all  things  proceed? 
By  the  highest  standards  of  man's  moral  faiths, 
aims,  achievements,  and  hopes  may  we  find  sugges- 
tion of  a  measure,  though  finite  and  inadequate, 
for  the  Eternal  Goodness.  As  these  are  only  prod- 
ucts, in  that  must  be  their  Source  and  Cause  and 
ancestral  Kind. 

But  this  argument-  would  be  rounded  to  better 
completion  were  the  further  points-  made  which 
have  been  developed  in  one  or  another  of  the  previ- 
ous lectures,  and  which  I  will  here  only  allude  to; 
namely,  that  the  Eternal   Power,  as  a  rational  phi- 


ETERNAL    GOODNESS    AND    HUMAN    DESTINY       I43 

losophy  gives  us  the  conception  to-day,  is  not  to  be 
thought  of  as  a  being  in  the  skies,  policing  human 
affairs  from  a  seat  of  sovereign  authority  there,  and 
saving  human  beings  from  disaster  by  a  dispensa- 
tion of  special  providences,  but  rather  as  a  power 
organized  in  the  very  laws  and  forces  of  nature  it- 
self and  in  the  mental  and  moral  capabilities  of  the 
human  mind ;  that  the  conditions  of  life  are  such 
that  man  must  adjust  himself  to  the  eternal  ener- 
gies and  laws,  and  thereby  become  a  providence 
unto  himself,  wielding  the  eternal  power  for  his 
own  and  others'  welfare;  that  this  process  of  ad- 
justment is  educational,  developing  human  faculty 
and  character,  and  making  man  a  responsible  agent 
in  repressing  evil  and  evolving  good  in  his  world; 
and  that  the  Eternal  Power,  working  in  and 
through  all  things,  is  justified  as  good  because  evo- 
lution itself,  which  is  the  process  of  its  activity, 
proceeds  by  the  law  of  amelioration  and  ascent 
from  simple  to  complex  forms  of  organism,  and 
from  low  to  higher  and  ever  higher  and  fairer 
realms  of  life.  Man,  regarded  through  the  long 
ages  of  history,  has  advanced  in  moral  perception, 
capacity,  and  conduct,  and  is  still  advancing; 
therefore  the  Power  that  has  been  man's  central 
and  vital  impulsion  must  be  good  and  not  evil. 

At  this  point  I  may  be  asked:  "But  what  of  the 
evil  impulsions  in  man?  Do  not  they  also  come 
from  the  Eternal  Energy  from  which  all  things 
proceed,  and  hence  reflect  back  their  dark  character 
upon  it?"     To    this    I    answer.    In    their   original 


144  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

germs  these  impulsions,  like  everything  else,  do 
spring  from  the  Eternal  Energy;  but  in  their  orig- 
inal form  they  are  void  of  moral  attributes.  They 
appear  first  in  the  lower  animal  creatures  as  in- 
stincts merely  of  self-nourishment  and  self-per- 
petuation and  preservation.  And  there  they  are  as 
normal  as  they  are  necessary.  In  primitive  man 
these  instincts  were  little  removed  from  their  brute 
stage;  and  in  individual  man  to-day,  as  in  primi- 
tive man,  these  instincts  of  self-interest  and  self- 
gratification  have  a  normal  function,  especially  in 
the  earlier  years  of  life.  But,  since  man  is  also  a 
being  of  rational  and  moral  consciousness,  these 
instincts  in  him  come  into  rightful  subjection  to 
the  higher  laws  of  reason  and  conscience.  And 
they  become  evil  impulsions  in  him  when  they  re- 
fuse this  subjection  to  the  larger  and  higher  law  of 
life  which  the  Eternal  Power,  through  the  very 
conditions  of  his  creation,  has  wrought  out  for 
man.  Self-interest  is  never  normally  an  end  in 
itself.  It  is  only  an  instrumentality  for  the  ac- 
complishment of  some  universal  good.  And  it  is 
of  the  very  essence  of  the  religious  and  ethical 
consciousness,  when  it  is  awakened,  to  annul  all 
interests  and  gratifications  which  are  bounded  by 
self,  and  to  subject  all  the  self-seeking  propensities 
to  the  service  of  the  general  benefit  or  of  some  uni- 
versal aim.  In  his  capacity  as  a  free  agent,  free 
within  certain  limits,  man  can  pursue  the  ends  of 
sheer  selfish  gratification.  But,  so  far  as  he  does 
so,  he  is   irreligious,  immoral.      He  unmans  him- 


ETERNAL    GOODNESS    AND    HUMAN    DESTINY       I45 

self,  and  resuscitates  in  his  nature  the  cast-off 
brute,  only  in  worse  form,  from  which  the  Eternal 
Power  had  been  lifting  him  for  a  higher  possibil- 
ity. So  far  from  acting  under  an  impulsion  of  the 
Eternal,  he  has  transmuted  what  the  Eternal  once 
made  good  into  evil,  and  for  consequence  loses 
the  conscious  power  of  the  Eternal  and  the  godlike 
from  his  nature,  and  sinks  back  under  the  sway 
of  carnal  and  material  law,  toward  the  meagre 
existence  of  the  brute  and  the  clod;  and  thus  he 
subjects  the  Eternal  Goodness  to  another  effort 
to  lift  his  existence  again  to  the  capabilities  of 
manhood. 

There  is,  moreover,  one  additional  consideration 
on  this  phase  of  our  theme  on  which  I  wish  to 
dwell  for  a  moment  or  two.  Our  verse  says, 
"Goodness  and  mercy  shall  follow  us."  Perhaps 
the  writer  would  have  said  "attend  us"  or  "lead 
us  "  just  as  readily.  Yet,  in  the  use  of  the  word 
"follow,"  there  is  a  peculiar  suggestiveness.  In 
the  midst  of  life's  ills,  they  are  sometimes  so  dark 
and  distressing  that,  at  the  time,  we  cannot  see 
nor  feel  the  overshadowing  goodness  and  mercy. 
There  are  calamities  in  which  we  cannot  say,  and 
are  not  called  to  say,  that  all  is  for  the  best  be- 
cause Eternal  Power  has  so  willed  it.  The  Eter- 
nal has  not  willed  to  drown  your  child,  nor  to 
sweep  away  a  city  by  flood,  nor  to  make  a  holocaust 
of  a  town's  population.  The  Power  has  simply 
not  interfered;  and  it  is  better,  on  the  whole,  that 
the  great   natural    laws   of  cause  and  effect,  which 


146  THE   TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

are  pregnant  with  benefit  for  man,  should  take 
their  course  than  that  a  life  should  here  and  there 
be  saved  from  violent  death,  and  you  and  I  be 
spared  from  grief.  Yet  even  then  the  goodness 
and  mercy  of  the  Eternal  are  not  wanting,  though 
often  they  may  follow  so  far  behind  our  suffering 
that  we  may  fail  to  see  them.  They  are  never  to 
be  looked  for  in  the  suffering  itself,  but  in  the  way 
we  meet  it.  The  substance  of  character  is  such 
that  it  may  be  nourished  from  sources  which  seem 
most  unpromising.  Trials  that  threaten  to  destroy 
may  strengthen  its  fortitude.  Temptations  re- 
sisted, vices  overcome,  may  be  converted  into 
moral  vigor.  Sorrow  and  tears,  however  bitter  to 
bear,  may  beget  a  tenderer  humanity  and  a  more 
spiritual  loveliness.  There  is  no  distress  which 
can  befall  us  for  which  there  is  not  a  following 
mercy  in  the  very  laws  and  forces  whereby  charac- 
ter grows  and  is  ennobled;  no  wound  made  in  our 
natures,  whether  by  moral  transgression  or  outward 
calamity,  but  that  from  the  greater  nature  that 
holds  us  and  of  which  we  are  born  there  begin  to 
move  toward  us,  and  toward  the  very  place  of 
bruise,  the  forces  of  healing  and  restoration. 
Only  we  must  hold  our  minds  and  wills  in  readi- 
ness to  receive  and  co-operate  with  the  good  intent. 
We  are  free,  within  certain  natural  limits,  to  walk 
our  individual  ways  and  to  open  or  close  the 
avenues  of  beneficial  influence  to  our  hearts;  yet, 
on  whatever  way  we  walk,  and  whatever  evils  we 
encounter,  there  is  in  the  very  laws   of  being  and 


ETERNAL    GOODNESS    AND    HUMAN    DESTINY       I47 

life  a  reserve  force  of  goodness  and  mercy  follow- 
ing us,  ready  at  our  first  beckoning  gesture  to  come 
up  to  our  side,  and  to  help  us  transform  the  ills 
into  some  kind  of  moral  benefit,  and  to  lead  us 
ever  toward  larger  vision  and  higher  attainments  of 
character. 

And  this  same  Power  that  has  been  patiently 
working  during  a  past  eternity  and  through  all 
kinds  of  conditions  for  and  toward  goodness  may 
be  trusted  to  have  in  store  for  man  a  worthy  moral 
destiny.  Whether  that  destiny  is  to  include  a  per- 
sonal immortality  there  is  no  science  as  yet,  using 
that  word  in  its  common  acceptation,  which  either 
affirms  or  denies.  We  are  here  left  to  the  argu- 
ment of  the  most  rational  probability.  And  some- 
times, when  there  comes  over  me  an  impression  of 
the  inconceivable  magnitude  and  orderly  grandeur 
of  this  universe,  of  its  indescribable  splendor  and 
beauty,  of  the  eternity  during  which  it  has  been  in 
process  of  creation,  of  the  infinite  transformations 
and  interactions  of  its  forces,  of  its  manifold 
realms  of  life,  material,  mental,  affectional,  moral, 
spiritual, —  organism  rising  upon  organism  and  life 
upon  life  to  ever  complexer  nature  and  finer  con- 
summation,—  and  when  I  think  of  man  as  the  crown 
of  this  ineffably  sublime  process  of  creation  on  this 
earth,  and  as  endowed  with  the  faculty  and  respon- 
sibility of  carrying  the  creative  task  forward  in 
this  world  to  some  nobler  issue,  he  being  a  veri- 
table and  conscious  incarnation  and  agent  of  the 
Eternal  Power  that 


148  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

"  Step  by  step  lifts  bad  to  good, 
Without  halting,  without  rest. 
Lifting  Better  up  to  Best,"  — 

when  I  think  of  man,  honored  by  such  a  capacity, 
mission,  and  service,  I  am  almost  ready  to  say: 
"That  is  enough:  to  fulfil  that  function  well  is 
adequate  dignity  and  destiny;  no  other  immortal- 
ity can  be  asked  for  than  that  which  accumulates 
from  personal  goodness  in  the  aggregate  welfare  of 
the  race,  and  which  seemed  to  suffice  even  the 
womanly  heart  of  George  Eliot,  when  she  wrote  of 

'  The  choir  invisible 
Of  those  immortal  dead  who  live  again 
In  minds  made  better  by  their  presence ; 

In  thoughts  sublime  that  pierce  the  night  like  stars, 
And  with  their  mild  persistence  urge  man's  search 
To  vaster  issues.' 


?  ?? 


Were  that  to  be  all,  it  would  yet  seem  a  worthy 
destiny  for  individual  man.  He  must  then  live  so 
well  as  to  greaten  and  gladden  the  mind  and  heart 
of  the  human  race  for  all  time  after  him.  His  rec- 
titude would  be  a  necessity  for  continuing  the 
unbroken  and  beneficent  succession  of  the  all- 
abounding  and  ascending  life.  The  individual 
might  perish,  but  even  then  the  life  that  was  in 
him  would  go  on.  The  old  leaf  on  a  tree,  which 
the  new  bud  pushes  off,  we  may  imagine  even  to 
welcome  the  new,  since  the  same  life  has  gone  into 
it  to  serve  a  perpetuated  purpose.      So  man  might 


ETERNAL    GOODNESS    AND    HUMAN    DESTINY       I49 

die  with  serenity,  happy  in  the  ripeness  of  years  to 
give  up  his  own  vitality  to  feed  the  never-dying 
vitality  of  his  race.  And  even, —  if  I  may  make  a 
most  daring  hypothesis, —  even  if  the  human  race 
were  at  some  remote  period  to  become  extinct,  even 
if,  as  astronomy  now  says,  a  world  may  become 
dead,  a  sun  or  star  go  out  of  existence,  we  may  yet 
conceive  of  a  universe  so  vast  and  majestic  in  its 
proportions  that  the  death  of  a  man  or  of  a  world 
may  have  no  more  effect  on  the  vast  and  ceaseless 
procession  of  beneficent  life  than  does  the  fall  of  a 
leaf  from  its  tree  when  it  has  fulfilled  its  function 
in  serving  the  unfolding,  ceaseless,  vital  Law. 

But,  again,  when  I  think  of  the  countless  aeons 
which  were  spent  by  the  Eternal  Power  in  produc- 
ing a  being  capable  of  such  service  as  this  which 
man  at  his  best  can  perform,  when  I  think  of  the 
world-struggles  and  birth-pains  of  which  he  is  the 
product,  I  am  reluctant  to  believe  that  the  consum- 
mate flower  of  creation  on  this  planet,  the  moral 
personality  of  man,  is  after  a  few  score  years  of 
existence  to  be  extinguished  forever,  blown  out 
like  the  flame  of  a  candle  by  a  whiff  of  your  breath. 
And  then  there  rises  before  me,  with  massive 
strength  the  more  rational  conclusion  that  some- 
where, somehow,  this  responsible  vicegerent  of  the 
Eternal  Power  will  continue  consciously  to  live 
and  work  in  this  universe,  which  is  the  house  of 
the  Eternal. 

Nor  am  I  troubled  by  the  problem  of  the  how 
and  the  where.      The  old  mythological  heavens  and 


150  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

hells  and  stories  of  physical  resurrections  we  may- 
regard  as  outlawed  by  modern  criticism.  Nor  do 
the  alleged  claims  of  Spiritualism,  though  I  have 
no  prejudice  against  them,  appear  to  me  to  have 
so  sifted  facts  from  personal  illusions  and  merce- 
nary frauds  as  to  avail  much  before  the  tribunal  of 
science.  But  there  is  no  more  difficulty  in  con- 
ceiving of  a  new  and  more  ethereal  body  for  the 
human  personality  after  the  death  and  hopeless  dis- 
solution of  the  present  body  than  there  would  be  in 
conceiving  a  priori  of  hundreds  of  things  which 
science  has  made  familiar  facts.  We  should  never 
a  priori  believe  it  possible  for  the  butterfly  to  come 
forth  from  the  grub,  nor  for  the  sun's  heat  to  be 
motor  of  all  energy  and  life  on  the  earth,  nor  for  a 
tiny  seed,  almost  invisible,  to  possess  within  it  a 
principle  of  life  capable  of  drawing  elements  from 
earth  and  air  and  moisture,  and  translating  them 
into  a  gigantic  tree,  with  all  its  beauty  of  foliage 
and  blossom  and  its  bounty  of  fruit.  Just  consider, 
for  a  moment,  that  unique  kind  of  matter,  the 
ether-atmosphere,  which,  as  science  assures  us, 
interpenetrates  our  denser  air  and  all  the  inter- 
planetary and  interstellar  spaces.  It  is  not  visi- 
ble, yet  makes  for  us  all  other  things  visible.  It 
is  not  tangible  nor  measurable.  No  chemical 
skill  has  resolved  it  into  its  constituent  elements. 
Science  has  nevertheless  inferred  its  existence  as  a 
necessary  condition  for  transmitting  light  and  heat 
from  the  sun  to  its  planets.  It  is  the  highway  of 
communication  between  the  worlds.     But  it  may  be 


ETERNAL    GOODNESS    AND    HUMAN    DESTINY       15! 

more  than  that.  Here  is  one  kind  of  matter  actu- 
ally occupying  to  some  extent  the  same  space  with 
another  kind  of  matter.  Why,  then,  may  we  not 
here  have  the  material  for  another  body  developing 
within  this  body  of  flesh,  which  may  be  the  cause 
of  some  of  the  strange  psychic  phenomena  now 
seeking  explanation?  Here  may  be  the  fabric  for 
the  shining  garments  of  our  dead, —  our  beloved 
ones  literally  rising  from  death  clothed  with  bodies 
of  light. 

Of  course,  I  am  not  pressing  this  hypothesis  for 
belief.  It  may  seem  to  most  persons  wildly  vis- 
ionary. My  only  point  is  that,  however  improba- 
ble an  hypothesis  may  seem  a  priori,  it  is  not 
therefore  to  be  dismissed  as  impossible.  Wonder- 
ful as  such  a  consummation  of  human  life  would 
be,  I  aver  that  in  itself  it  would  be  no  greater 
marvel  than  is  the  scientific  fact  that  not  a  breath 
is  drawn  by  any  living  creature  on  this  earth,  not 
a  blade  of  grass  grows,  not  a  flower  blooms,  not 
a  movement  is  made  nor  any  kind  of  power  exerted 
here,  but  that  the  engine  which  does  it  all  is  in 
that  sun  up  yonder  ninety-five  millions  of  miles 
away.  And  the  connection  between  the  engine 
there  and  its  work  here  is  by  the  waves  of  this 
invisible  ocean  of  ether!  I  am  only  urging  that, 
on  this  great  problem  of  immortality,  it  behooves 
us  to  be  very  modest  not  only  in  our  affirmations, 
but  in  our  denials, —  very  modest,  yet  very  expect- 
ant. There  is  a  theological  dogmatism  which 
greatly  obstructs  the  way  of  truth;  and  there  is  a 


152  THE    TWENTY-THIRD    PSALM 

credulity  that  is  the  root  of  superstition.  But 
there  is  an  incredulity  which  is  as  hostile  to  truth's 
progress  as  is  superstition  or  dogmatism, —  an  in- 
credulity that  is  the  dogmatism  of  negation,  and 
closes  the  avenues  of  the  mind  to  the  very  ap- 
proaches of  truth. 

But,  in  whatever  form  this  problem  of  man's 
future  destiny  is  to  be  settled,  his  present  duty 
remains  the  same.  In  some  shape  our  lives  and 
their  results  must  survive  death.  Somewhere  in 
the  house  of  the  Eternal,  our  influence,  our  work, 
our  spirit,  or  our  still  living  personality  will  con- 
tinue for  helping  to  shape  eternal  issues.  In 
either  case  our  duty  now  is  to  do  the  best  service 
possible  for  this  world's  good,  and  to  attain  the 
utmost  possible  nobility  of  character  and  conduct, 
and  then  to  wait  serenely  and  patiently,  and  also, 
if  it  be  possible,  with  the  glow  of  large  expectancy 
in  our  eyes,  for  death  to  lift  the  veil  and  reveal  the 
after  destiny.  And  in  either  case,  too,  we  shall 
dwell  still  in  the  house  of  the  Eternal,  to  "share," 
as  said  our  greatest  American  prophet  and  psalm- 
ist, "the  will  and  the  immensity  and  the  immortal- 
ity of  the  First  Cause."  No  rightly  living  soul 
need  ever  fear  to  be  exiled  at  death  to  an  utterly 
strange  country.  Moral  realms  are  not  separated 
by  space  nor  time  nor  outward  condition.  Who- 
ever lives  a  life  of  righteousness  on  whatever 
planet  dwells  now  in  heaven  and  inhabiteth  and 
enrichcth  eternity. 


THE   TRINITY    OF    EVOLUTION. 

The  modern  scientific  doctrine  of  Evolution,  in 
its  teachings  and  implications  concerning  world- 
formation,  has  given  us  a  new  trinity,  which,  I 
venture  to  say,  will  play  even  a  more  important 
part  in  the  religious  thinking  of  the  future  than 
the  theological  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  has  played 
in  the  past  history  of  Christendom. 

The  three  constituent  elements  of  the  Trinity  of 
Evolution  are  Power,  Intelligence,  Goodness;  con- 
sidering the  various  manifestations  of  the  creative 
World-energy,  we  are  in  a  condition,  I  think,  now 
to  affirm  on  scientific  grounds  that  there  can  be 
no  adequate  explanation  of  all  the  phenomena  of 
the  world  without  implying  that  each  of  these 
three  elements  must  be  an  inherent  attribute  of  the 
creative  Energy.  Of  course,  there  is  hardly  need 
to-day  to  add,  in  any  intelligent  assembly,  that 
modern  science  does  not  allow  us  to  conceive  of 
creation  as  beginning  or  ending  six  thousand  or 
even  six  hundred  thousand  years  ago,  or  as  being  at 
any  time  a  finished  process.  The  scientific  theory 
is  that  creation  is  a  continuous  process,  that  pro- 
ductive forces  which  were  operative  in  the  universe 
six  thousand  or  six  hundred  thousand  years  ago  are 
operative  to-day,  that  the  book  of  genesis  in  nature 


154  THE    TRINITY    OF    EVOLUTION 

is  an  unending  one,  and,  further,  that  all  finite 
existences  known  to  us,  from  atom  to  animalcule 
and  from  animalcule  to  man,  are  linked  in  one 
organic  creative  process, — 

"  A  subtle  chain  of  countless  rings 
The  next  unto  the  farthest  brings ;  "  — 

so  that  we  cannot  scientifically  or  logically  separate 
man  from  the  process  of  cosmical  creation,  nor,  in 
determining  the  attributes  of  the  creative  World- 
energy,  leave  the  attributes  of  humanity  out  of 
account.  Whatever  is  in  the  product  must  exist 
in  some  elemental  form  in  the  Source  or  Cause. 
Hence,  in  any  question  concerning  a  world-plan  or 
world-purpose,  man,  with  all  his  immense  moral 
capacities  and  possibilities,  must  be  included  as  a 
most   important   part   of  the  answer. 

There  have  been  some  philosophers,  as  well  as 
common  people,  who  are  not  wise  philosophers, 
who  doubt  whether  the  world  of  nature  below  man 
gives  evidence  of  any  moral  law,  of  any  beneficent 
purpose.  They  count  up  the  internecine  strifes 
among  the  animal  races,  the  bitter  struggles  for 
existence,  the  sufferings,  cruelties,  and  destruc- 
tions everywhere  rife  in  nature;  and  then  they  ask 
in  a  tone  of  triumph.  If  there  be  a  just  and  merci- 
ful Deity,  why  does  he  not  stop  this  painful  and 
merciless  animal  conflict?  And  why  does  he  afflict 
human  beings  with  unavoidable  cruel  calamities 
from  nature's  violence?  But  all  these  objectors 
seem  to  me  to  be  still  entangled  with  the  old  con- 


THE    TRINITY    OF    EVOLUTION  1 55 

ception  of  Deity  as  an  almighty  artificer,  who 
created  the  world  by  a  few  original  strokes  six 
thousand  years  ago,  and  set  it  in  motion  as  some- 
thing apart  from  himself.  They  have  not  really 
grasped  the  scientific  conception  of  a  continuous 
World-energy,  which  has  not  yet  ceased  its  crea- 
tive work  nor  reached  its  goal,  of  a  World-energy 
that  is  involved  and  identified  with  all  present 
forces  for  organizing  and  sustaining  life,  and  is  re- 
vealing its  attributes  and  aims  in  all  the  manifold 
phenomena,  movements,  and  progress  of  human 
thought  and  conscience  as  well  as  in  the  world  of 
material  nature.  These  objectors  are  really  sitting 
in  judgment  on  a  being  who  is  the  creation  of 
human  brains  in  a  past  and  ignorant  age, —  a  mere 
fragment  of  a  Deity.  But  whence,  I  ask,  that  very 
sense  of  mercy  and  justice  which  boldly  judges 
nature's  violence?  Whence  that  human  pity  and 
intelligence  which  attempt  to  improve  on  nature's 
work?  They  are  born  with  man  of  the  very  power 
that  is  the  mainspring  of  nature's  movements. 
Man  is  himself  nature's  child.  He  fulfils  her  aim, 
reveals  her  purpose;  and  all  that  he  has  of  intel- 
ligence, conscience,  goodness,  all  that  he  has  of 
moral  faculty  and  hope,  is  to  be  credited  back  to 
the  motive-power  that  connects  man  with  nature  in 
one  continuous  process  of  creation.  No  evidence 
drawn  from  any  isolated  portion  of  the  known  uni- 
verse, nor  from  a  limited  section  of  time,  nor  from 
any  mere  fragment  of  a  creative  process  which  even 
we  see  to  have  neither  beginning  nor  end,  can  be 


156  THE    TRINITY    OF    EVOLUTION 

adequate  for  a  decision  against  the  character  of  a 
sovereign  Energy  admitted  to  be  eternal  in  its 
dominion  and  work. 

It  is  from  these  large  premises  that  the  problem 
of  the  character  of  Deity  must  be  approached;  and 
it  is  from  a  survey  as  nearly  universal  as  human 
knowledge  will  admit,  it  is  from  a  study  of  the 
great  trend  of  things  from  the  beginning  of  man's 
knowledge  of  the  forces  of  the  universe  and  of 
human  history  up  to  the  present  moment, —  compar- 
ing forces  with  results,  seeing  the  character  of 
causes  in  their  consequences,  tracing  the  evidences 
of  advance  and  ascent  along  the  courses  of  life  from 
the  primitive  organic  cell  to  the  brain  of  a  Plato 
and  the  heart  of  a  Jesus, —  it  is  from  such  a  com- 
prehensive survey  as  this  that  modern  science  en- 
ables us  to  affirm  of  the  world's  creative  process 
that  trinity  of  attributes  which  I  have  named 
Power,  Intelligence,  Goodness. 

Of  these  attributes  there  is  one  of  which  no  sane 
human  being  ever  doubts.  The  evidences  of  power 
—  of  power  above  human  power  —  are  omnipresent. 
They  are  conspicuous  on  every  side.  They  press 
upon  the  human  senses  in  overwhelming  array. 
These  evidences  of  power  in  the  universe  above 
man  and  before  man  we  can  never  escape.  By  day, 
by  night,  in  joy  or  pain,  in  life  or  death,  we  are 
made  conscious  that  we  intimately  touch  and  de- 
pend upon  some  Reality  of  existence  mightier  and 
older  than  ourselves  or  than  the  human  race.  It 
was  the  sense  of  this  Power  that  first  bowed  primi- 


THE    TRINITY    OF    EVOLUTION  15/ 

tive  man  in  worship.  It  is  the  consciousness  of 
this  Reality  above  and  more  than  ourselves  that 
founded  religious  institutions,  that  built  this  house, 
and  that  has  brought  us  to  this  house  this  morning, 
or  that  formed  the  habit  of  coming  thither.  Of 
this  first  constituent  of  the  Trinity  of  Evolution, 
therefore,  there  is  no  need  I  should  speak  further. 
The  evidence  of  it  is  almost  too  convincing,  for  it 
comes  not  always  gently.  It  not  only  charms  us  in 
the  rose  and  the  grass  and  the  orderly  procession  of 
the  seasons,  but  it  rushes  in  the  deadly  tornado,  it 
heaves  the  ocean  to  destructive  fury;  it  sends  a 
tremor  through  the  solid  earth  and  bursts  it 
asunder,  burying  in  its  yawning  chasms  cities  and 
their  inhabitants;  it  belches  fire  and  ashes  and 
death  from  the  volcano's  mouth. 

But  mere  cosmical  power  alone  could  not  hold 
intelligent  man  in  the  attitude  of  worship.  Primi- 
tive man  might  have  prostrated  himself  before  nat- 
ure's violent  forces  in  sheer  terror;  but,  as  soon  as 
the  human  mind  developed  an  intelligence  suffi- 
cient for  controlling  and  using  such  natural  forces 
as  came  within  its  dominion,  only  Power  intelli- 
gible in  method  could  receive  its  real  homage. 
The  human  mind  may  stand  in  awe  before  the  de- 
structive calamities  which  sometimes  ensue  in  this 
era  of  civilization  from  the  breaking  away  from 
human  control  of  those  natural  forces  which  have 
been  harnessed  to  the  service  of  man;  but  the  very 
awe  leads  him  to  inquire  by  what  act  of  omission 
or  commission  of  his  own  that  intelligent  guidance 


158  THE    TRINITY    OF    EVOLUTION 

was  lost,  and  then  how  he  may  supply  a  remedy 
against  a  repetition  of  such  disasters.  What  the 
human  mind  renders  its  homage  to  is  not  sheer 
power  with  no  guidance  but  chance,  not  blind, 
reckless  fatality,  but  power  that  works  in  the 
grooves  of  law  and  method  to  a  calculable  end. 
And  this  is  true  not  only  of  the  natural  forces 
which  man  has  learned  to  control  to  his  own  uses, 
but  of  that  omnipresent  World-energy  which  is  the 
force  within  and  behind  all  forces.  Sometimes 
this  almighty  energy  may  seem  to  us  to  have  es- 
caped all  grooves  of  method,  and  its  end  may  be 
unintelligible  to  us,  but,  in  the  main,  it  works 
and  has  ever  worked  in  ways  of  orderly  sequence 
which  respond  so  fully  to  man's  own  intelligence 
that  he  has  a  right  to  assume  that  the  rule  controls 
the  apparent  exceptions.  Indeed,  in  view  of  the 
intimate  connection  between  life  and  the  constancy 
of  nature's  methods,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  no  race 
of  intelligent  beings,  no  species  like  mankind, 
could  ever  have  been  developed  in  a  universe  whose 
powers  and  forces  were  subject  to  infinite  chance 
and  caprice.  Man  has  risen  to  his  own  intelli- 
gence, and  developed  a  civilization  which  means 
largely  a  progressive,  intelligent  control  of  the 
forces  of  nature,  only  because  he  had  an  intelli- 
gible world  to  deal  with. 

I  stood  one  day  last  summer  on  a  lofty  mountain- 
top,  with  still  loftier  peaks  all  around  me  and 
fertile  valleys  lying  at  the  mountain's  foot.  On 
every    hand    were    evidences    of    mighty     Power. 


THE    TRINITY    OF    EVOLUTION  1 59 

What  gigantic  primeval  force  has  lifted  those  rocky- 
heights  and  scooped  those  valleys?  Rough  Titans 
of  power  they  were  that  there  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  earth  and  dropped  those  huge  granite 
bowlders  down  the  mountain  slopes  and  over  the 
hillsides.  Nor  man  nor  beast  was  there  to  see,  nor 
had  any  tiniest  form  of  life  begun.  But  modern 
science  has  read  for  us  the  story,  and  told  us  that 
that  primeval  titanic  energy  is  of  Protean  form; 
that  the  Power  which  lifted  those  mountain  heights 
and  shaped  their  sides  to  the  line  of  beauty  and 
impelled  those  granite  bowlders  to  their  lodgement 
is  the  same  Power  which,  in  other  phase,  clothed 
the  mountains  with  forests  and  carpeted  the  valleys 
with  grass,  and  brought  in  orderly  sequence  every 
kind  of  ascending  life,  the  same  Power  which  on 
that  Sunday  morning,  when  I  worshipped  on  the 
mountain-top,  was  still  all  alive  and  active  around 
me,  making  the  very  glory  that  held  my  vision,  the 
same  Power  that  was  blossoming  in  the  roadside 
asters,  striving  to  cover  the  wounds  of  mountain 
slides  and  chasms  with  verdure,  sparkling  in  the 
waterfall,  crowning  Mount  Washington  with  a  sil- 
very cloud,  bordering  my  very  footsteps  with  the 
charms  of  color  and  form  in  the  lichens,  mush- 
rooms,   and  mosses. 

This  story  of  nature's  creation  and  movement 
and  life,  from  the  time  when  the  earth  first  solid- 
ified into  continents  up  to  the  present  moment,  is  a 
history;  there  is  a  regular  sequence  of  events,  ac- 
tivities,   living    things    and    creatures,   an    orderly 


l60  THE    TRINITY    OF    EVOLUTION 

ascent  of  species  with  increasing  capacities  and 
functions,  and  throughout  the  whole  history  an 
advance  in  fitness  of  relationship,  in  symmetry 
of  form,  in  harmony  and  beauty.  Now,  wherever 
there  are  fitness,  order,  method,  harmony,  beauty, 
cause  joined  to  its  own  consequent,  there  are  the 
marks  of  intelligence.  These  are  the  qualities 
that  make  the  world  an  intelligible  world,  and 
render  it  inhabitable  by  intelligent  beings.  These 
are  the  qualities  that  attract  the  admiration  and 
reverence  of  intelligent  minds.  I  care  little  to 
prove  that  these  qualities  must  be  attributes  of  a 
supreme  personal  consciousness.  It  is  the  quali- 
ties themselves  that  win  my  trust  and  become  my 
support  and  refuge.  Somehow,  because  of  the  very 
orderliness  of  their  working,  I  believe,  they  join  in 
the  unity  of  one  Power.  But  it  is  not  the  power  of 
a  mere  personal  will  more  than  mere  material  en- 
ergy that  I  can  rationally  worship.  I  can  only 
rationally  worship  those  attributes  that  guide  per- 
sonal will  to  intelligible  results.  It  is  before  the 
evidences  of  Intelligence  presented  in  the  universe 
that  my  own  intelligence  bends  in  homage. 

But  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  does  not  stop  with 
a  dual  Deity.  Power  and  Intelligence  do  not 
exhaust  the  attributes  of  the  World -energy.  The 
Evolution  doctrine  discloses  to  us  a  world  which 
rises  from  power,  through  intelligence,  to  moral 
life.  Power  intelligibly  proceeding  to  good  ends, 
—  that  is  Evolution's  motto  for  the  world.  I  do 
not  mean  by  this  that   it   is   legitimate   to  repeat 


THE    TRINITY    OF    EVOLUTION  l6l 

to-day  the  old  argument  of  beneficent  design  in  the 
realm  of  material  nature.  That  argument  dealt  in 
petty  details,  and  would  now  not  always  stand  the 
test  of  facts.  With  regard  to  individuals,  an  1 
even  whole  species,  the  beneficence  of  natural  law 
is  not  always  apparent.  In  the  world  of  nature 
below  man  we  need  not  look  for  any  complete  evi- 
dence of  moral  aim.  The  design  in  nature  which 
science  discloses  is  of  a  large  style.  It  is  adap- 
tation, tendency,  organic  movement  toward  great 
and  often  distant  ends.  It  means  strivings,  even 
though  unconscious  of  any  aim,  that  result  in 
ascent  and  enrichment  of  life.  It  means  finer 
species,  nicer  faculties,  more  delicate  organs,  in- 
creased facilities  and  better  modes  of  living,  truer 
intelligence,  keener  perceptions  of  the  intelligible 
order  of  things,  and  more  power  to  cope  with  and 
use  nature's  resources.  After  long  ages  of  these 
upward  struggles  and  strivings  of  material  nature, 
man  appeared  as  their  resultant,  —  a  being  to  a 
large  extent  self-governing,  self-elevating,  capable 
of  improving  upon  his  own  nature  both  individually 
and  in  the  species.  In  man  the  World-energy 
blossomed  into  moral  consciousness;  into  percep- 
tions of  a  right  and  a  wrong,  and  into  ability  to 
choose  and  to  do  the  right;  into  that  voluntary  rec- 
titude and  the  love  of  it  which  is  goodness;  into 
pity  for  error  and  badness,  and  into  effort  to  make 
the  bad  into  good  and  the  good  ever  into  a  better 
and  best;  into  spiritual  aspiration,  which  seeks 
ever  to   subordinate  material   means  to  intellectual 


1 62  THE    TRINITY    OF    EVOLUTION 

ends  and  selfish  pleasures  to  universal  good.  All 
this  part  of  man  is  the  World-energy  itself  in  its 
moral  aspect.  Whence,  otherwise,  could  the  moral 
consciousness  and  moral  law  have  had  their  source? 

"  Out  from  the  heart  of  nature  rolled 
The  burdens  of  the  Bible  old." 

From    Power    to     Intelligence,    from    Intelligence 
to    Goodness, —  so   has  the  world-process  revealed 
the  world-purpose.      Power,   for  its  own  conserva- 
tion,   necessitated    an    intelligent    and    intelligible 
order.      A    system,   or    rather    medley,    of    chance- 
forces  would  be  mutually  destructive.      And  Intel- 
ligence, for  the  same  reason,   must   rise  to  moral 
rectitude  in  order  to  hold  the  line  for  the  best  and 
permanent   ascent  of    life.     Intelligence  itself,    as 
soon  as  adequately  developed,  makes  declaration  of 
the  principle  of  justice  as  the  equation  of  rights 
between  men,  just  as  it  declares  the  laws  of  beauty 
or   the  unalterable  relations   between  numbers   in 
mathematics.     So  came  the  Golden  Rule,  wherever 
and  whenever  intelligence  rose  high  enough  to  per- 
ceive the  moral  equation,  as  in  China,  Persia,  Pal- 
estine,   and   Greece;   and   so,    too,   the    "Love    thy 
neighbor  as  thyself,"  and  all  the  recognized  obliga- 
tions, in  religion  and  ethics,  of  fellowship  and  fra- 
ternity  between    man   and    man    as    the    basis    of 
society.     Thus  man  himself  is  the  proof  that  the 
universe,  at  least  so  far  as  concerns  our  existence, 
has  a  moral  character  and    aim;  and    Goodness  is 
to  be  added  to  Intelligence  and  Power,  to  complete 


THE    TRINITY    OF    EVOLUTION  163 

the   Trinity  of  forces   in  the  world-process  which 
Evolution  teaches. 

But  I  may  here  be  told  that  man  himself  is  not 
good,  that  he  is  a  violator  of  his  own  moral  con- 
sciousness, that  he  continually  breaks  the  com- 
mandments which  his  conscience  declares,  that  a 
very  large  portion  of  mankind  is  sunk  in  wicked- 
ness and  moral  degradation.  To  this  objection  I 
reply  that  we  are  here  talking  of  aims  and  aspira- 
tions, of  the  world-purpose  and  strivings;  and  we 
are  not  to  confound  these  with  any  present  accom- 
plishment. It  is  enough  to  prove  a  moral  charac- 
ter and  purpose  in  the  universe  that  out  of  its  own 
heart  it  has  given  birth  to  a  moral  guide,  and  that 
it  has  set  in  the  spiritual  sky  of  humanity  an  ideal 
of  moral  perfection  to  be  followed  after.  Creation 
is  not  finished  with  man.  Man  himself  has  not 
completed  the  pattern  of  manhood.  In  most  of  us 
survive  still  some  relics  of  the  brute  and  the  clod. 
But  the  ages  are  patient,  and  the  world-purpose  is 
to  be  judged  by  man's  gradual  success  in  overcom- 
ing animalism  and  enthroning  intelligence  and 
rectitude  over  brute  selfishness  and  force.  Says 
our  Emerson:  "The  age  of  the  quadruped  is  to  go 
out :  the  age  of  the  brain  and  of  the  heart  is  to 
come  in.  And,  if  one  shall  read  the  future  of  the 
race  hinted  in  the  organic  effort  of  Nature  to 
mount  and  meliorate,  and  the  corresponding  im- 
pulse to  the  Better  in  the  human  being,  we  shall 
dare  affirm  that  there  is  nothing  he  will  not  over- 
come and  convert,  until  at  last  culture  shall  absorb 


164  THE    TRINITY    OF    EVOLUTION 

the  chaos  and  gehenna.  He  will  convert  the 
Furies  into  Muses,  and  the  hells  into  benefit." 
There  is  man's  aim;  and  in  man's  aim  Nature 
works  toward  her  purpose. 

In  considering,  therefore,  the  character  of  the 
world-purpose,  we  are  bid  to  take  man,  not  at  his 
poorest,  but  at  his  best.  We  are  to  take  him,  not 
as  he  is,  but  as  he  may  be  and  aspires  to  be, — 
not  in  his  wickedness  and  degradation,  but  in  the 
moral  shape  he  is  slowly  rising  to  assume.  We 
are  to  take  him  in  his  highest  achievements  and 
his  noblest  possibilities.  We  are  to  take  him  with 
his  moral  ideals  even  more  than  with  his  achieve- 
ments. We  are  to  think  of  the  highest  illustrators 
of  manhood,  of  the  saints  and  martyrs  who  have 
gone  to  their  death  rather  than  deny  the  truth,  of 
the  philanthropists  who  have  lived  self-denying 
lives  for  the  good  of  their  fellow-men,  of  the  men 
and  women  who  in  quiet,  inconspicuous  stations  or 
in  the  stress  of  life's  conflicts  have  stood  firmly  for 
the  right  at  whatever  cost  to  self,  of  such  lives  of 
faithful  affection,  of  stainless  probity,  of  duties 
well  discharged,  as  we  have  all  seen  in  some  realm 
or  other  of  this  common  human  life  we  share.  We 
are  to  think  of  those  in  whose  faces  shine  the  Beat- 
itudes, who  are  of  humble  spirit,  who  are  peace- 
makers, who  are  merciful,  who  hunger  and  thirst 
after  righteousness,  who  are  pure  in  heart,  who  go 
about  doing  good.  These  are  our  patterns  for  the 
fashion  of  human  life,  and  not  they  who  still  live 
in  the  company  of  base  passions,  and  arc  still  of 


THE    TRINITY    OF    EVOLUTION  165 

the  earth  and  the  beast,  earthy  and  animal  only. 
And  all  these  are  revealers  and  apostles  of  an  Eter- 
nal Goodness.  Not  only  do  they  reveal  the  moral 
purpose  of  the  universe,  but  they  are  sharers  and 
sustainers  in  its  accomplishment. 

"  For  Mercy  has  a  human  heart ; 
Pity,  a  human  face  ; 
And  Love,  the  human  form  divine ; 
And  Peace,  the  human  dress. 

"And  all  must  love  the  Human  form, 
In  heathen,  Turk,  or  Jew; 
Where  Mercy,  Love,  and  Pity  dwell, 
There  God  is  dwelling  too." 

Thus  we  have  our  Trinity,  as  science  permits 
it.  Power,  Intelligence,  Goodness, —  these  are 
the  threefold  manifestation  of  the  creative  World- 
energy.  Power,  Wisdom,  Goodness, —  these  make 
our  triune  God.  Nor  is  there  a  merely  fancied 
resemblance  between  this  idea  and  the  philosophi- 
cal trinity  of  the  later  Platonic  school  in  Greece, 
which  the  early  Christian  thinkers  transformed 
into  a  theological  Trinity.  Out  of  the  mystery  of 
Eternal  Being,  the  vague  Source  of  all  power  and 
life,  came,  these  ancient  philosophers  taught,  the 
Logos,  or  Creative  Word,  the  Word  of  Wisdom  of 
which  the  Old  Testament  apocryphal  writer  loved 
to  discourse,  the  "Word  made  flesh"  which  makes 
the  theme  of  the  proem  of  the  Fourth  Gospel. 
And  this  old  doctrine  of  divine  incarnation  is 
true,  only  (as  it  has  become  one  of  the  common- 


l66  THE    TRINITY    OF    EVOLUTION 

places  of  liberalism  to  teach)  it  is  not  exceptional 
for  one  man,  but  is  the  law  for  humanity.  This 
Creative  Word,  of  Power,  of  Wisdom,  of  Love, 
incarnates  itself  in  human  character  to-day,  full  of 
grace  and  truth;  and  we  may  behold  its  glory. 
Through  human  lives,  bent  on  the  errands  of  truth, 
justice,  mercy,  and  love,  it  is  striving  still  to  lift 
the  whole  race  of  humanity  above  the  sway  of  an- 
cestral animalism  into  the  higher  life  of  self-con- 
trolling reason  and  moral  law.  The  Power  is  from 
everlasting  to  everlasting,  ever  before  our  eyes; 
and  a  measure  of  it  is  organized  in  our  human 
brains  and  hands.  But  Wisdom,  too,  reacheth 
from  one  end  to  another  mightily,  and  "it  enlight- 
eneth  our  eyes."  Power  is  only  executive.  Wis- 
dom is  creative;  and  Goodness,  even  our  human 
goodness,  completes  the  threefold  creative  work  on 
this  earth,  and  has  been  compared  to  the  Holy 
Ghost  of  the  ancient  Trinity,  whose  "white  wings 
stoop,  unseen,  o'er  the  heads  of  all." 


RELIGION    AS   THE   AFFIRMATION    OF 
GOD    IN    HUMAN    NATURE. 

One  of  the  best  definitions  of  religion  I  have 
ever  seen  I  met  recently  in  a  printed  discourse  by 
a  minister  of  the  Swedenborgian  church.  It  was 
this:  "Religion  is  the  affirmation  of  God  in  human 
nature."  The  dialect  of  the  discourse  was  some- 
what technically  theological,  of  the  style  peculiar 
to  the  disciples  of  Swedenborg;  yet,  in  the  main, 
the  thought  contained  in  this  definition  was  de- 
veloped simply,  rationally,  and  naturally.  The 
quickening  of  the  soul  to  the  perception  of  truth, 
the  purification  of  the  heart  from  all  evil  impulses 
and  lusts,  the  instinctive  action  of  conscience  in 
denouncing  wrong  and  approving  the  right,  the 
consecration  of  the  will  to  carry  out  into  external 
deeds  the  behests  of  these  inward  perceptions  of 
truth  and  rectitude  and  disinterested  love, —  these 
were  depicted  as  the  essential  conditions  and  evi- 
dence of  the  influx  and  indwelling  of  the  life  of 
God  in  the  human  soul.  The  writer,  for  instance, 
further  said  that  "the  spiritual  church  of  God  is 
no  other  than  the  indwelling  and  irradiation  of 
truth  and  mercy  and  justice  and  peace  in  all  man's 
nature,  coming  from  the  centre,  the  temple  where 
abides   the   Lord,    throughout    the  whole    earth   of 


l68  RELIGION    AS    THE    AFFIRMATION 

man's  consciousness  that  silently  listens  and  will- 
ingly obeys." 

This  definition  of  religion  as  the  affirmation  of 
God  in  human  nature  seemed  to  me  peculiarly  sug- 
gestive at  this  time,  as  offering  possibly  certain 
meeting-points  of  enlightenment  and  reconciliation 
amidst  the  religious  doubts  and  controversies  which 
agitate  the  mental  atmosphere  of  the  present  age. 
The  contents  of  the  definition,  it  is  true,  present 
no  new  thought.  To  affirm  God  in  human  nature 
is  that  doctrine  of  the  immanence  of  God  in 
humanity  which  Theodore  Parker  made  so  familiar 
in  his  preaching,  and  which  has  now  become  one 
of  the  commonplaces  of  liberal  religious  thinkers, 
and  is  not  even  a  stranger  in  more  evangelical 
writings.  But  "the  affirmation  of  God  in  human 
nature  "  is  an  expression  of  the  same  truth  in  less 
scholastic,  simpler,  and  therefore  more  impressive 
phrase.  Let  us,  then,  consider  this  new  aspect  of 
our  old  and  familiar  doctrine,  "Religion  is  the 
affirmation  of  God   in  human  nature." 

The  subject,  as  it  presents  itself  to  my  thought, 
divides  into  two  parts :  first,  as  a  doctrine  of  en- 
lightenment and  reconciliation  among  current  criti- 
cisms, doubts,  and  disputes  concerning  religion ; 
second,  as  a  doctrine  of  practical  reconciliation  and 
applicable  to  the  exigencies  and  struggles  of  per- 
sonal life. 

If  we  apply  the  method  and  results  of  science  to 
the  various  problems  of  religion,  and  if  we  inter- 
pret the  proposition  contained  in  this  definition  of 


OF    GOD    IN    HUMAN    NATURE  169 

religion  thereby,  it  seems  to  me  that  light  will  be 
thrown  where  there  is  now  much  darkness,  and  a 
unifying  principle  be  discovered  for  resolving  cer- 
tain antagonisms  in  religious  thinking,  and  for 
bringing  discords  into  harmonies.  There  is,  for 
instance,  the  old  idea  of  God  as  a  being  external  to 
the  universe,  making  and  ruling  it  from  his  seat 
above  the  heavens,  and  communicating  his  will  to 
man  by  supernatural  inspiration  and  miraculous 
agencies,  —  an  idea  that  has  become  thoroughly  dis- 
credited by  science,  and  finds  little  support  among 
philosophical  thinkers  to-day,  but  which  keeps  its 
hold,  though  a  hold  becoming  more  and  more  pre- 
carious, among  the  mass  of  uncultivated  people,  if 
they  have  any  religious  beliefs  at  all.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  is  the  wide-spread  disbelief  in 
this  kind  of  Deity,  both  among  cultivated  and  un- 
cultivated people,  combined  with  a  professed  in- 
capacity as  yet  to  attain  to  any  other  and  rational 
conception  of  God;  and  this  kind  of  denial  calls 
itself  atheism.  And,  again,  there  is  another  type 
of  belief  about  Deity  which  denies  the  old  theolog- 
ical conception  of  a  God  outside  the  world,  making 
the  world  in  six  days,  and  ruling  it  from  a  throne 
of  sovereignty  above  the  heavens,  but  which  yet 
recognizes,  within  and  behind  all  the  changing  ac- 
tivities and  phenomena  of  the  world,  some  power 
from  which  all  things  proceed  or  depend, —  a 
power,  however,  which  it  declares  an  inscrutable 
mystery:  this  is  the  agnostic  position, —  a  mental 
position    frankly    confessed    by    a     large    class    of 


I/O  RELIGION    AS    THE    AFFIRMATION 

people  at  the  present  day,  and  the  penumbra  of 
whose  doubts  overlaps  a  very  much  larger  class, 
including  a  multitude  of  persons  who  still  keep 
their  connection  with  churches.  Now,  to  what 
does  science  lead  us  for  belief  on  this  great  primal 
question  of  Deity?  Of  course,  science  —  physical 
science  —  does  not  profess  to  have  the  problem  of 
Deity  for  its  object.  It  is  investigating  the  forces, 
forms,  organisms,  creatures  of  the  finite  world. 
But,  in  pursuing  this  investigation,  it  has  necessa- 
rily come  into  contact  and  conflict  with  the  old  re- 
ligious conception  of  the  creation  and  government 
of  the  universe.  And  it  has  not  done  this  without 
furnishing  materials  for  at  least  a  partial  new  con- 
ception of  a  Power  corresponding  to  and  taking  the 
place  of  that  Sovereignty  to  which  the  old  theolo- 
gies gave  the  name  of  God.  If  science  has  not 
made  this  new  conception  so  complete  in  particu- 
lars and  so  definite  to  the  human  understanding  as 
was  the  old,  this  is  not  because  the  scientific  con- 
ception is  smaller  than  that  of  the  ancient  theol- 
ogies, but  because  it  is  vastly  larger  and  more 
truly   infinite   in   its  comprehension. 

Now,  keeping  within  the  limits  of  scientific  al- 
lowance, what  kind  of  conception  of  Supreme  and 
Divine  Being  is  permitted  to  us?  Herbert  Spen- 
cer answers  for  agnosticism  thus:  "There  remains 
the  one  absolute  certainty,  that  man  is  ever  in  the 
presence  of  an  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy  from 
which  all  things  proceed."  That  gives  us  the 
essential  and  original  idea  under  the  Hebrew  Je- 


OF    GOD    IN    HUMAN    NATURE  I/I 

hovah-conception,  "The  I-am-that-I-am, "  or  unde- 
rived  Eternal  Being  and  Power.  But,  through  the 
doctrine  of  the  gradual  evolution  of  the  worlds  and 
all  their  forms  of  life,  combined  with  the  doctrine 
of  the  conservation  and  correlation  of  forces,  we 
are  scientifically  permitted  to  clothe  this  Infinite 
and  Eternal  Energy,  in  whose  presence  we  ever 
are,  and  from  which  we  ourselves  proceed,  with  a 
certain  history  and  attributes.  In  this  part  of  the 
universe  with  which  we  are  acquainted,  we  know 
that  this  Eternal  Energy  has  manifested  itself  in 
the  orderly  development  of  finite  forces,  structures, 
organisms,  and  life;  and  on  this  planet,  in  the 
gradual  ascent  of  life  from  the  lowest  and  simplest 
forms  of  sensation  to  organisms  more  and  more 
complex  and  expressive,  until  finally  man  appeared, 
and  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy  in  him  broke 
into  self-reflective  thought  and  moral  sensation, 
into  speech  and  song  and  free  co-operative  volition 
for  furthering  the  Eternal  aim  and  process.  Keep- 
ing strictly  in  the  pathway  through  which  science 
leads  us,  where  could  these  human  faculties  of 
reason,  of  moral  sense,  and  of  moral  volition,  have 
had  their  source,  and  whence  can  they  derive  their 
continual  being  and  validity  but  in  that  Infinite 
and  Eternal  Energy  from  which  all  things  pro- 
ceed? We  can  scientifically  give  no  other  account 
of  them  than  that  they  are  finite  manifestations, 
vital  organic  forms  and  expressions,  of  that  Eternal 
Energy  itself.  But  what  is  this  Eternal  Energy 
but  the  scientific  name  for  the  Power  which  religion 


1/2  RELIGION    AS    THE    AFFIRMATION 

has  called  God,  or  Jehovah,  or  Brahm,  or  Deity? 
The  name  matters  little:  each  nation  or  language 
has  its  own.  But  they  are  all  attempts  to  denote 
the  one  Great  Reality,  the  "one  absolute  cer- 
tainty "  of  a  Power  eternal,  in  whose  presence  we 
ever  are,  and  that  not  only  comprehends  but  pene- 
trates us  every  moment  with  its  law  and  life,  and 
is  the  substance  of  our  mental,  moral,  and  affec- 
tional  being.  If  science  tells  us  truly  of  the 
orderly  sequences  of  life  through  which  the  Eternal 
Energy  travelled  until  it  appeared  in  the  human 
consciousness,  what  escape  is  there  from  the  con- 
clusion that  those  inward  perceptions  of  truth  and 
rectitude  and  disinterested  love  that  manifest  them- 
selves in  the  human  consciousness  are  part  and  par- 
cel of  the  very  substance  of  that  Eternal  Power? 
or,  in  more  religious  phrase,  are  the  manifestation 
and  life  of  God  in  human  nature? 

And,  to  my  mind,  it  appears  both  reasonable  and 
credible  that  all  thoughtful  minds  now  holding  the 
various  and  antagonistic  beliefs  to  which  I  have 
referred  should  come  gradually  into  accord  on  this 
central  truth,  the  resultant  of  science,  that  the 
Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy,  or  God,  has  its  em- 
bodiment and  revelation  in  human  nature,  and  that 
ultimately  it  should  become  a  generally  accepted 
fundamental  principle  that  religion  is  the  affirma- 
tion of  the  Eternal  Divine  Law,  Purpose,  and  Life 
in  the  intellectual  and  moral  nature  of  man.  The 
traditional  adherent  of  the  old  theological  concep- 
tions would  come  to  see  that  he  has  not  thereby 


OF    GOD    IN    HUMAN    NATURE  1 73 

lost  his  God,  as  he  may  now  fear,  but  that,  in  lieu 
of  his  localized  distant  Deity,  he  has  found  an  infi- 
nitely larger  and  grander  conception  of  God,  bring- 
ing him  infinitely  nearer,  a  literally  omnipresent 
and  vital  Helper  in  every  act  and  moment  of  life. 
The  sceptic  and  atheist,  seeing  that  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal types  of  Deity  had  become  obsolete  and  were 
relegated  with  their  kindred  to  the  shadow-land  of 
mythology,  could  bring  no  logical  objections  to  a 
conception  of  Deity  suggested  and  substantiated 
by  the  science  which  they  profess  to  take  for  a 
guide.  They  would  see  that  their  criticisms,  many 
of  them  just,  have  been  directed,  not  against  this 
eternal  root  of  the  Deity-conception,  from  which 
there  is  no  logical  escape,  but  against  the  supersti- 
tious fancies  which  man's  infantile  imagination 
had  fastened  upon  it.  And  the  Agnostic,  while 
still  holding  that  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy 
cannot  be  absolutely  comprehended  by  man,  and 
that  it  is  vain  that  the  human  mind,  by  its  meta- 
physical theologies,  should  attempt  to  analyze  and 
elucidate  all  the  attributes  of  Supreme  Power, 
would  nevertheless  be  logically  compelled  to  con- 
fess that  the  being  and  character  of  a  Power,  whose 
gradual  unfolding  in  nature  and  humanity  is  the 
one  field  where  all  our  science  makes  its  re- 
searches and  discoveries,  cannot  possibly  remain  a 
wholly  unknowable  and  inscrutable  mystery.  Why 
should  not  the  agnostic,  the  sceptic,  the  atheist, 
the  theist  of  all  types,  Christian  and  other,  come 
thus  to  unite  in  the  reverent  paean,  which  even  the 


174  RELIGION    AS    THE    AFFIRMATION 

sciences  now  sing,  to  the  Power  that  was  and  is 
and  is  to  be,  and  that  organizes  its  august  purposes 
and  high  behests  in  the  rational  and  moral  con- 
sciousness of  man  ? 

A  similar  ground  for  amity  may  be  found  for 
bringing  together  the  old  disputants  in  the  Chris- 
tian Church  about  the  doctrine  of  incarnation. 
The  affirmation  of  God  in  human  nature  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  only  a  statement,  in  the  more  familiar 
phraseology  of  religion,  of  the  scientific  doctrine 
that  the  Eternal  Energy,  working  its  way  upward 
through  various  orders  of  organic  life,  finally  pro- 
duces and  embodies  itself  in  the  organism  of  man, 
in  whose  capacities  of  rational  thought,  of  moral 
perception  and  volition,  and  of  disinterested  love, 
it  reveals  its  own  purpose  and  secures  a  finite 
helper  of  its  own  kith,  in  the  execution  of  its  aims. 
And  this  is,  essentially,  the  doctrine  of  incarna- 
tion. Man  is  the  offspring  of  the  Eternal  Power 
in  a  larger,  higher  sense  than  are  the  lower  creat- 
ures which  have  come  from  the  all-producing  En- 
ergy. Man  is  the  moral  offspring  of  the  Eternal 
Power,  and  revealer,  therefore,  of  its  moral  nature. 
Man  can  thus  legitimately  claim  conscious  sonship 
and  heirship  to  Deity.  The  rational  and  moral 
character  in  him,  since  it  can  have  no  other  source, 
is  of  the  same  substance  and  character  with  the 
Eternal  Power  whence  it  proceeds.  Not  all  men, 
indeed,  give  evidence  in  their  lives  of  this  great 
fact  of  legitimate  kinship  to  Deity.  They  who 
give   high   and   full    evidence  of   it   are   very  few. 


OF    GOD    IN    HUMAN    NATURE  I75 

But  the  germinal  possibilities  of  moral  character 
are  in  the  human  race  and,  in  a  measure,  in  all 
individuals.  It  is  but  natural,  however,  that  those 
who  have  incarnated  in  their  lives  most  of  the 
Eternal  and  Divine  should  have  been  regarded  in 
ages  of  the  world's  simplicity  of  thought  as  having 
been  miraculously  endowed  and  born.  So  we  even 
speak  to-day  of  exceptionally  great  intellects  as 
"godlike."  And  thus  the  doctrine  of  incarnation 
as  a  process  exceptional  and  supernatural  arose. 
In  Christendom  it  was  only  Jesus  that  was  the  Son 
of  God;  in  a  large  part  of  Asia,  only  Buddha. 
But  science  to-day  is  teaching  a  larger  fact,  that 
comprehends  all  exceptions  and  belittles  all  alleged 
miracles, —  the  fact  that  man,  in  his  mental  and 
moral  capacities,  is  the  veritable  incarnation  and 
responsible  vicegerent  of  Eternal  Power  on  this 
earth.  "The  history  of  Jesus,"  as  Emerson  said, 
becomes  in  this  view  "the  history  of  every  man, 
written  large." 

Still  again  the  various  religions,  with  their  con- 
flicting claims  and  bitter  contentions,  may  find 
terms  of  peace  in  the  recognition  of  religion  itself 
as  the  affirmation  of  God  in  human  nature.  Now 
the  religions  each  have  their  founders  and  prophets 
and  scriptures,  each  claiming  to  reveal  the  one  true 
God.  But  the  one  true  God  is  not  provincial,  but 
universal;  not  tribal,  but  of  all  races  and  nations; 
not  now  and  here,  but  everywhere  and  of  all  time. 
When  science  says  that  the  Eternal  Energy  has  em- 
bodied itself  in  humanity  and  disclosed  necessarily 


176  RELIGION    AS    THE    AFFIRMATION 

its  own  character  and  purpose  in  the  rational  and 
moral  faculties  of  human  nature,  it  points  to  the 
path  of  reconciliation  among  the  now  antagonistic 
religions  of  the  world.  They  all  claim  rightly  to 
be  in  legitimate  connection  with  the  Power  Eternal 
and  Divine.  They  all  claim  rightly  to  have  some 
revelation  of  that  Power,  which,  though  they  may 
claim  for  it  supernatural  origin,  has  actually  come 
to  them  through  the  natural  utterances  of  the  ra- 
tional and  moral  consciousness  of  human  nature. 
Here  then  is  their  ground  of  unity.  They  are  but 
different  developments  and  manifestations  of  the 
same  Power,  branches  from  one  common  root,  or, 
as  Paul  phrased  it,  "There  are  diversities  of  opera- 
tions, but  it  is  the  same  God  who  worketh  all 
in  all." 

But  it  is  more  than  time  that  I  turned  to  what  I 
named  as  the  second  division  of  my  topic, —  the 
practical  application  of  the  definition  of  religion 
as  the  affirmation  of  God  in  human  nature  to  in- 
dividual and  personal  needs,  or  its  reconciling 
power  in  the  actual  struggles  of  life.  And  I 
touch  here  a  subject,  a  central  and  fundamental 
truth  of  religious  life,  let  me  say,  so  momentous 
in  its  bearings,  so  solemn  in  respect  to  the  respon- 
sibilities it  devolves  upon  every  one  of  us,  that 
I  know  I  can  only  treat  it  very  inadequately. 
Though  I  have  touched  it  or  treated  it  scores  of 
times  in  the  course  of  my  ministry,  I  have  never 
yet  been  able  to  treat  it  to  my  satisfaction  in  the 
depth  and  breadth  and  height  with  which  it  some- 


OF    GOD    IN    HUMAN    NATURE  I'J'J 

times  presents  itself  to  my  mental  vision.  This 
subject,  the  Life  and  Power  of  God  in  the  Soul  of 
Man,  was  the  subject  of  the  first  sermon  I  ever 
wrote;  and,  if  in  the  last  sermon  I  shall  ever 
write,  I  could  rightly  deliver  the  message  on  this 
great  theme  toward  which  my  thought  aspires,  I 
should  deem  it  the  highest  crown  my  life  work 
could  receive.  Here  in  this  truth  I  am  convinced 
is  the  gospel  which  this  doubting,  troubled  age  most 
needs, —  this  age  of  material  prosperity  and  ambi- 
tions, this  age  of  many  threatening  and  perilous 
evils,  but  of  noble  moral  and  humanitarian  aspi- 
rations. Amid  these  conflicting  aims,  here  is  the 
mediatorial  motive  needed  for  guidance,  health, 
safety,  and  genuine  progress.  Could  it  be  given 
to  me  to  go  through  our  land  to  proclaim  with  ade- 
quate power  this  gospel,  I  could  ask  for  no  higher 
mission.  Here  is  the  reconciling,  atoning,  saving 
religion  of  the  future, —  the  gospel  that  is  alike 
needed  in  the  marts  of  trade,  in  the  halls  of  poli- 
tics, in  the  industries  and  professions,  in  homes 
and  churches  and  social  life. 

Religion  as  the  affirmation  of  God  in  human 
nature;  religion  as  the  proclamation  of  the  verita- 
ble incarnation  of  the  Eternal  Power,  with  its  attri- 
butes of  intelligence  and  moral  purpose  in  the 
human  faculties,  not  by  supernatural,  exceptional 
inspiration,  but  naturally  and  inherently  there  in 
the  very  substance,  fibre,  and  organism  of  the 
faculties  themselves;  religion  as  the  organized 
presence,    power,    and    life   of    God    in   the  human 


178  RELIGION    AS    THE    AFFIRMATION 

soul, —  how  can  any  one  of  us  so  bring  this  truth 
before  ourselves  that  we  may  actually  comprehend 
it  and  behold  it  and  feel  it  in  all  its  mighty  im- 
port? That  capacity  within  you  to  discern  truth 
from  error;  that  mental  loyalty  to  truth  which  will 
not  let  you  betray  her  when  the  highest  motive 
controls  you;  that  conscious  drawing  of  your  hearts 
toward  the  highest  rectitude,  which  only  gives 
you  ease  and  joy  when  you  follow  it;  that  sense 
of  moral  purity  which  shrinks  instinctively  from 
all  uncleanness  of  thought  and  conduct;  that  im- 
pulse of  disinterested  love  which  summons  you 
humbly  to  serve  rather  than  selfishly  to  enjoy; 
your  gifts  of  reason;  your  abilities  to  overcome 
difficulties,  to  transform  nature's  blind  forces  into 
benefits,  to  conquer  vice  and  triumph  over  sorrow; 
your  aspirations  after  knowledge;  your  domestic 
affections;  all  your  noble  enthusiasms  for  right 
and  duty;  the  law  laid  upon  all  your  faculties  to 
do  the  utmost  service  with  them  for  human  good, — 
these  are  all  not  merely  channels  into  which  the 
Divine  Life  flows  as  if  from  an  outward  source,  but 
they  are  the  very  energies  themselves  of  the  living 
power  of  the  Eternal,  vitally  organized  in  the  very 
substance  of  your  being,  and  energies  that  are 
ever  striving  through  you  and  in  you  and  in  all 
human  beings  toward  the  production  of  nobler 
forms  of  character  and  life,  and  of  social  welfare. 
This  is  the  momentous  import  of  our  doctrine  that 
religion  is  the  affirmation  of  God  in  human  nature. 
With   this  sovereign  majesty  of   responsibility  for 


OF    GOD    IN    HUMAN    NATURE  1 79 

the  well-being  and  progress  of  the  world,  if  I  in- 
terpret the  lessons  of  our  latest  science  aright,  is 
man  literally  and  actually  invested. 

Nor  does  the  critic  have  any  valid  ground  for  his 
question  who  asks,  Since  human  nature  proceeds 
from  the  one  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy  which 
we  now  identify  as  God,  why  must  we  not  call 
human  nature  wholly  divine  in  all  its  impulses, 
motives,  and  doings?  The  Eternal  Energy  itself 
takes  care  that  no  such  consequence  can  follow. 
The  God  within  is  his  own  witness,  and  testifies 
clearly  what  parts  of  human  nature  are  temporal 
and  earthy  survivals  of  material  and  animal  law, 
and  what  parts  are  vital  with  eternal  and  moral 
purposes.  Our  doctrine  does  not  teach  that  God  is 
human  nature,  but  that  God  is  in  human  nature. 
Individual  man,  like  the  primitive  human  race, 
must  subsist  for  a  time  through  the  various  motives 
that  spring  from  self-interest  and  self-gratification. 
But  self-interest  is  never  normally  an  end  in  itself. 
It  is  only  an  instrumentality  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  some  universal  good.  It  is  only  for  uni- 
versal and  eternal  purposes  that  the  Eternal  Energy 
can  care.  Its  high  law  can  have  no  part  in  provid- 
ing for  personal  partialities,  nor  demean  itself  to 
offices  of  purely  selfish  gain  or  pleasure.  It  is  of 
the  very  essence  of  the  religious  consciousness, 
when  it  is  awakened,  to  annul  all  interests  and 
gratifications  which  are  bounded  by  self,  and  to 
subject  all  the  self-seeking  propensities  to  the  ser- 
vice of  the  general  benefit.     In  his  capacity  as  a 


l80  RELIGION    AS    THE    AFFIRMATION 

free  agent  man  can  pursue  the  ends  of  selfish  grati- 
fication; but,  so  far  as  he  does  so,  he  is  irrelig- 
ious, he  loses  the  godlike  from  his  nature,  and 
sinks  back  under  the  sway  of  carnal  and  material 
law  toward  the  meagre  existence  of  the  brute  and 
the  clod.  But,  obeying  the  God  that  is  within 
him,  man  rises  ever  upward  into  successively  larger 
and  richer  realms  of  mental,  moral,  and  spiritual 
life. 

Our  faculties  thus  clothed  with  this  majesty  of 
Divine  Sovereignty,  how  great  the  profanation  and 
crime,  and  how  overwhelming  should  be  our  shame, 
if  we  put  them  to  base  uses,  if  we  harness  them  to 
the  pursuits  of  selfish  avarice  and  cunning  and  to 
the  appetites  of  the  flesh!  For  all  such  debase- 
ment and  defilement,  the  hells  open  at  our  feet 
with  ample  retributions.  The  very  faculties  will 
dwindle  and  perish  under  persistent  misuse  and 
abuse.  Yet  heaven,  too,  is  no  distant  place  nor 
time,  but  lies  level  with  the  true  mind,  the  pure 
heart,  and  the  consecrated  will.  The  God  that  is 
within  human  nature  is  a  Power  ever  ready  at  hand 
in  all  the  storms  and  stresses  of  life,  and  needs  not 
to  be  invoked  from  afar.  Prayer  is  the  excitation 
of  the  higher  and  heavenly  faculties  of  our  own  nat- 
ures to  take  and  hold  dominion  over  the  impulses 
of  the  heart  and  the  conduct  of  life,  and  to  redeem 
us  from  the  sway  of  our  own  temptations  and  sins. 
The  Divinity  does  not  have  to  be  waited  for,  but 
waits  itself,  at  the  very  spot  of  need,  for  man's 
soliciting;   .'gesture   and   effort.      If  men    will   draw 


OF    GOD    IN    HUMAN    NATURE  l8l 

the  lightning  of  the  skies  to  do  their  daily  errands, 
or  harness  fire  and  steam  for  their  steeds,  and  the 
power  comes  also  sometimes  to  kill  and  to  maim, 
man  must  know  that  the  Deity  to  whom  he  is  to 
pray  for  averting  the  peril  is  the  Deity  enthroned 
in  the  intelligence  and  skill  of  the  human  facul- 
ties. If  we  are  summoned  into  the  valley  of  the 
shadows  to  part  there  with  companions  whom  we 
have  cherished,  in  the  hushed  chambers  of  our  own 
hearts  and  in  "the  work  of  our  hands"  shall  we 
find  the  rod  and  the  staff  that  are  waiting  to 
comfort  us.  The  cure  for  earth's  distresses  is 
committed  to  man's  keeping.  The  elements  of 
Divinity  are  within  him,  the  elements  of  heaven 
are  right  around  him.  To  his  intelligent  and  con- 
secrated will  is  given  the  task  to  transform  the 
errors  and  ills  of  earth  into  the  moral  prosperity 
and  gladness  of  heaven.  Who  of  us  will  not  with 
renewed  alacrity  enlist  in  that  godlike  service? 


RATIONAL   GROUNDS    FOR   WORSHIP. 

In  calling  your  attention  to  the  question,  "What 
is  worship,  and  are  there  any  rational  grounds  for 
it?  "  I  wish  to  say  at  the  outset  that  I  use  the  word 
"worship"  itself  with  a  rational  discrimination. 
It  is  one  of  the  old  religious  words  which,  because 
of  errors  and  superstitions  surrounding  them,  have 
fallen  largely  into  disuse  among  liberal  thinkers 
as  damaged  phraseology.  I  am  not  myself  accus- 
tomed to  employ  the  word  without  explanation  ex- 
pressed or  implied.  In  the  ordinary  ecclesiastical 
sense  it  means,  of  course,  some  specific  act  of 
adoration  or  homage  to  Deity  or  deities ;  and  this 
act  may  be  performed  by  a  Christian  or  pagan,  by 
a  Jew,  Mohammedan,  or  Buddhist,  according  to 
their  respective  beliefs,  by  every  kind  of  idolater 
as  well  as  by  an  enlightened  devotee.  It  may  be 
the  turning  of  a  prayer-machine,  as  among  some  of 
the  Asiatic  Buddhists,  or  the  counting  of  beads, 
as  in  the  Roman  Catholic  church,  or  a  dance  of 
ecstasy,  as  among  the  dervishes,  or  an  act  of  silent 
aspiration,  as  among  the  Quakers,  or  a  great  burst 
of  music  by  voice  and  instruments,  as  in  many 
Christian  and  other  churches.  All  these  and  any 
other  acts,  under  any  kind  of  religious  faith,  which 
are  believed  to  give  the  participants  special  access 
to  the  Deity  or  deities  of  their  faith,  are  rightly 


RATIONAL    GROUNDS    FOR    WORSHIP  183 

classified  in  religious  history  under  the  term  "wor- 
ship." Yet,  into  whatever  empty  and  meaningless 
formalities  many  of  these  acts  have  fallen,  and 
however  superstitious,  idolatrous,  and  corrupt  they 
may  seem  to  any  of  us, —  and  the  idolatries  are  not 
all  among  the  so-called  pagan  faiths,  —  the  word 
"worship"  has,  when  we  analyze  its  origin,  a  very 
excellent  meaning;  and  at  the  root  of  the  practice 
there  is  a  vital  truth  which  is  not  yet  outgrown, 
and  which  is  capable  of  enlightened  and  beneficent 
interpretation.  In  itself,  etymologically  consid- 
ered, worship  means  "the  condition  of  attaining 
worthiness."  The  word  is  of  Anglo-Saxon  origin; 
and  the  first  syllable  of  it  means  "worth,"  and  the 
second  syllable  signifies  "means,"  or  "instru- 
ment," or  "condition"  (literally,  "vessel,"  it  is 
probable)  for  bringing  the  "worth."  In  this 
sense,  certainly,  it  is  a  very  good  word  to  keep. 
And  it  is  with  this  underlying  sense  that  I  use  it 
in  this  discourse,  with  reference  to  the  religious 
usage  of  the  assembling  of  people  together  for 
some  kind  of  specific  and  public  expression  of  re- 
ligious thought  and  feeling.  It  is  of  this  kind  of 
usage  that  I  propose  to  consider  whether  it  has  any 
rational  grounds  of  continuance.  Not  a  few  lib- 
eral thinkers  to-day  are  disposed  to  doubt,  or  even 
to  deny,  that  there  are  such  grounds.  And,  in 
contending  that  there  is  a  rational  basis  for  wor- 
ship as  thus  defined,  and  as  such  public  services 
may  be  conducted,  I  want  to  make  two  or  three 
definite  preliminary  statements. 


184  RATIONAL    GROUNDS    FOR    WORSHIP 

First,  I  do  not  believe  and  have  never  taught 
that  Deity  dwells  more  in  any  edifice  called  a 
church  than  he  does  in  our  homes ;  nor  that  we  can 
ever  set  apart  any  place,  and  make  it  by  any  verbal 
formula  of  consecration  a  divine  temple;  nor  that 
genuine  worship  of  the  Eternal  depends  on  special 
place  or  time  or  form  of  speech,  or  architectural 
structure.  The  universe  is  God's  temple.  In  nat- 
ure around  us  he  both  reveals  and  hides  himself. 
He  may  be  found  on  the  mountain-top  or  by 
ocean's  shore.  The  Eternal  Power  smiles  for  us 
in  the  beauty  of  the  roadside  flower  and  of  the 
orchards,  or  may  meet  our  thought  as  we  gaze  up- 
ward to  the  overarching  blue  sky, —  that  all-em- 
bracing, bending  vault  of  the  heavens,  where  our 
Aryan  ancestors  in  Asia,  centuries  before  the 
Christian  era,  found  their  highest  symbol  of  Deity 
and  named  it  "Heaven-Father."  Looking,  there- 
fore, at  outward  nature  alone,  we  cannot  go  outside 
of  God's  temple.  We  cannot  find  the  smallest  spot 
in  all  space,  nor  contemplate  a  single  force  in  the 
whole  realm  of  existence,  but  that  Deity  is  there. 

Further,  and  in  a  still  deeper  sense,  the  human 
soul  is  God's  temple.  The  Eternal  dwells  and 
lives  and  moves  in  humanity.  In  human  charac- 
ter, true,  loving,  beneficent,  is  his  highest  revela- 
tion.    This  is  what  one  of  our  hymns  says: — 

"  God  is  in  his  holy  temple  : 

In  the  pure  and  holy  mind, 
In  the  reverent  heart  and  simple, 
In  the  soul  from  sense  refined." 


RATIONAL    GROUNDS    FOR    WORSHIP  l8$ 

So  we  shall  not  find  Deity  in  any  church  unless  we 
have  brought  him  with  us  in  our  minds  and  hearts; 
that  is,  unless  we  find  him  through  the  pathway 
of  some  desire  for  a  better  perception  of  truth  and 
for  purer  life,  through  sincere  desire  for  nobler 
thinking,  nobler  loving,  nobler  doing.  Nor, 
again,  do  I  forget  that  this  "pure  and  holy  mind," 
this  "reverent  and  simple  heart,"  this  enkindling 
of  a  solemn  purpose  to  live  more  uprightly,  more 
unselfishly,  more  nobly  and  purely,  this  aroused 
devotion  to  high  objects  of  beneficence,  may  occur 
elsewhere  than  in  a  so-called  house  of  God.  It 
must  come  most  surely  to  the  earnest  mother,  as 
she  sits  thoughtfully  by  the  cradle  of  her  new-born 
child.  It  comes  whenever  the  young  man  and 
young  woman  take  each  other  in  the  holy  vows  of 
a  true  marriage.  It  comes  in  many  an  incident  of 
home  life  where  heart  touches  heart  to  the  awaken- 
ing of  new  hope  and  firmer  resolve  for  the  good. 
It  comes  whenever  a  great  temptation  in  the  con- 
ventional life  of  business  or  fashion  is  overcome, 
and  the  soul  is  rescued  to  live  henceforth  upon  its 
own  integrity.  Whenever  and  wherever  the  human 
soul  is  thus  uplifted  to  see  and  to  grasp  for  a 
higher  good,  there  is  worship,  there  is  devotion, 
and  there  is  God.  And  the  soul  that  in  any  spot, 
by  any  means,  thus  finds  him  becomes  his  choicest 
temple.  The  grandest  cathedral,  the  most  beauti- 
ful temple,  that  human  art  ever  built  is  not  so 
amiable  (to  use  the  quaint  Bible  phrase),  is  not  so 
fascinatingly  lovely,  so  wonder-inspiring,  as  is  the 


l86  RATIONAL    GROUNDS    FOR    WORSHIP 

human  soul   when   livingly  consecrated  to  the  ser- 
vice of  truth  and  goodness. 

All  these  things  I  firmly  believe  and  teach. 
Yet  I  also  believe  in  the  great  usefulness  of  a  fixed 
place  and  time  for  special  religious  services.  I 
believe  in  the  Church  as  an  institution  which 
human  society  still  needs  for  its  highest  good. 
Whether  the  Church  is  ever  to  be  outgrown, 
whether  this  need  is  ever  to  be  supplied  in  some 
other  way,  is  a  question  which  may  be  asked,  and 
which  some  rationalistic  thinkers  do  ask,  but  which 
seems  to  me  to  be  a  question  that  does  not  loudly 
call  for  present  discussion.  As  to  the  future,  it 
will  answer  it  own  questions.  For  the  present,  as 
I  look  around  me  and  study  the  wants,  the  aspira- 
tions, the  mental  and  moral  condition  of  society,  I 
am  convinced  that  the  Church  as  an  institution 
is  not  yet  outgrown, —  in  other  words,  that  estab- 
lished religious  usages  and  instrumentalities  are 
serving  humanity  in  a  way  which  nothing  else  has 
yet  been  found  able  to  supplant.  Did  I  not  be- 
lieve this  fully  and  thoroughly,  I  could  not  have 
faced  a  congregation  Sunday  after  Sunday  for  more 
than  thirty  years,  with  the  religious  words  on  my 
tongue. 

Of  course  I  know  that  the  Church,  regarding  it 
in  the  light  of  instituted  religion  as  a  whole,  has 
tolerated  and  taught  great  errors  and  committed 
great  wrongs.  The  saddest  chapters  of  history, 
and  some  of  the  crudest,  are  those  that  describe 
deeds  that  have  been  done  in  the  name  of  religion. 


RATIONAL    GROUNDS    FOR    WORSHIP  1 8/ 

I  know  that  there  are  great  sections  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  to-day  which,  by  their  doctrines  and 
ritual,  keep  the  intellects  of  their  adherents  in 
gross  darkness  and  delay  human  progress.  The 
Church  needs  vast  transformations  to  fit  it  to  do 
the  work  now  demanded  of  it.  But  those  transfor- 
mations are  coming.  I  see  the  beginnings  of  them 
even  in  churches  that  are  still  far  from  me  in  re- 
spect to  beliefs  and  forms  of  worship.  I  believe, 
therefore,  in  the  Church,  not  as  it  has  been  in 
the  past,  not  as  it  is  in  the  present,  but  as  an  in- 
stitution capable  of  reformation  and  growth.  I 
believe  in  it  as  having  its  origin  in  a  vital  human 
sentiment  and  idea,  but  as  having  become  mal- 
formed through  gross  errors.  But  the  sentiment 
and  idea  are  genuine,  and  are  still  an  organic  part 
of  the  human  mind  demanding  expression;  and, 
when  duly  enlightened,  they  will  convert  the 
Church  and  its  varied  instrumentalities  into  an 
institution  in  full  harmony  with  rational  thought 
and  humanitarian  objects.  That  is  the  hope  which 
animates  my  heart  as  a  religious  believer,  and  that 
is  the  purpose  which  has  impelled  me  to  cast  my 
lot  with  radical  religious  reformers. 

And  it  is  from  this  position  and  point  of  view 
that  I  feel  moved  to  speak  these  words  to-day  in 
behalf  of  the  Church  as  it  may  be  liberally  organ- 
ized. There  is  a  significance  and  value  in  relig- 
ious institutions  which  a  large  class  of  liberal 
thinkers  seem  to  me  seriously  to  overlook.  This 
class  of    thinkers   regard    religious   institutions  as 


1 88  RATIONAL    GROUNDS    FOR    WORSHIP 

fatally  involved  vi^ith  superstitions  and  false  beliefs 
which  must  inevitably  pass  away;  and  so  they  are 
iconoclasts.  They  would  sweep  the  Church  out  of 
existence  or,  at  least,  leave  it  to  a  process  of  nat- 
ural neglect  and  decay  as  the  increasing  light  of 
reason  and  science  shall  show  it  to  have  no  valid 
basis  in  truth.  But  I  claim  for  religious  institu- 
tions ample  validity  on  the  ground  of  reason, — 
yes,  on  the  ground  of  science  and  of  a  scientific 
philosophy  of  human  nature;  for  the  Church,  not 
with  its  errors  and  superstitions,  but  reformed  and 
elevated  to  its  own  ideal  possibilities. 

And  my  first  reason  for  the  continuance  of  the 
Church,  as  thus  defined,  is  that  it  stands  for 
the  moral  and  spiritual  interests  of  mankind,  for 
the  higher  life  of  man  as  distinguished  from  those 
pursuits  which  are  devoted  to  gain-getting  and  to 
the  feeding  and  clothing  and  sheltering  of  the  body. 
Now  I  believe  that  it  is  a  historical  fact  that  relig- 
ion, notwithstanding  all  its  corruptions  and  false 
teachings,  has  always  in  essence  stood  for  this 
higher  life,  for  an  ideal  beyond  and  better  than  the 
actual,  for  something  more  than  the  pleasure  of  the 
senses  and  the  satiety  of  physical  appetite.  It  has 
stood  for  a  law  of  mental  and  moral  restraint  upon 
the  body  and  its  desires.  It  has  stood  for  high 
commands  of  right  and  duty.  It  has  held  out  the 
promise,  either  for  this  world  or  some  other,  of 
a  better  and  happier  life  for  mankind,  when  the 
evils  and  sins  of  their  passing  existence  should  be 
conquered  and  known  no  more.     The   literature  of 


RATIONAL    GROUNDS    FOR    WORSHIP  1 89 

all  the  great  religions  testifies  to  this  sense  of  a 
higher  life.  All  the  great  prophets  of  all  faiths 
have  sought  to  kindle  and  strengthen  these  aspira- 
tions for  higher  than  physical  satisfactions.  And 
to-day  there  is  no  question  among  people  whose 
testimony  is  worth  consideration  that  there  is  this 
higher  life;  that  is,  a  life  not  given  over  to  un- 
controlled physical  license  or  to  the  amassing  of 
material  wealth,  but  a  life  following  the  high  lead- 
inofs  of  mind  and  conscience  and  heart  to  felicities 
that  are  of  a  mental  and  spiritual  order.  This  will 
be  admitted  even  by  those  who  hold  a  material- 
istic philosophy.  It  will  be  asserted  by  aggressive 
iconoclasts  in  religion  like  Ingersoll.  There  is^ 
a  lower  life,  devoted  to  the  physical  senses  and 
pleasures  and  to  material  ambitions;  and  there  is 
a  higher  life  of  mind  and  heart  and  conscience. 
Now  I  say  that  religion  represents  and  has  always 
in  a  sense  represented,  even  under  its  false  creeds 
and  strange  practices,  this  upper  and  aspiring  side 
of  human  life.  It  has  taught  that  man  may  live  by 
immortal  principles  and  for  a  deathless  destiny. 
And  the  Church,  taken  at  its  average  at  the  present 
day,  expresses  for  human  society  at  large,  though 
but  in  poor,  pitiful,  and  stumbling  fashion,  this  up- 
ward look  and  aspiration,  this  belief  in  and  rever- 
ence for  the  higher  law  of  life.  And,  if  the  Church 
in  the  average  has  this  signification  now,  even  en- 
cumbered as  it  is  with  false  doctrines  and  with 
traditional  usages  which  have  lost  their  meaning  for 
the  present  age,  how  much  more  effectively  might  it 


190  RATIONAL    GROUNDS    FOR    WORSHIP 

express  and  serve  this  purpose,  were  it  emancipated 
from  its  blind  thraldom  to  outgrown  creeds  and 
traditions,  and  brought  up  abreast  with  the  grow- 
ing light  and  truth  and  humane  endeavors  of  this 
new  time! 

And  no  one,  surely,  can  deny  that  a  powerful 
influence  on  this  upper  and  better  side  of  life  is 
needed  in  this  age.  It  is  especially  an  age  given 
to  material  hopes,  enterprises,  and  pursuits,  an  age 
of  commerce  and  mechanical  ambition  and  wealth- 
getting,  an  age  when  man  is  struggling  with  the 
material  world  to  master  its  forces  and  drain  to 
himself,  for  his  own  acquisition  and  enjoyment,  its 
riches.  All  this  is  well,  if  kept  controlled  for 
serving  the  higher  acquisitions  of  mind  and  heart 
and  soul.  But,  as  yet,  this  higher  control  does 
not  to  any  mastering  extent  disclose  itself.  It  is 
an  age  of  Mammon-worship  and  of  the  power  of 
Mammon.  The  amassed  and  quickly  accumulated 
riches  show  themselves  too  often  in  pandering  to 
the  lower  and  animal  life,  in  increased  comforts 
and  luxuries  for  the  body,  in  multiplying  every  sort 
of  means  of  self-indulgence,  in  pampering  physical 
appetite  and  every  form  of  desire  for  physical 
pleasure,  in  ostentatious  parade  of  dress  and  equi- 
page and  costly  festivities,  and,  alas,  in  the  more 
positive  vices  of  gambling  and  other  dissipations 
that  attach  themselves  to  vulgar  wealth  and  fringe 
the  borders  even  of  reputable  society  in  all  our 
large  cities  and  at  the  fashionable  places  of  pleas- 
ure resort.     There  are  persons  of  wealth  who  have 


RATIONAL    GROUNDS    FOR    WORSHIP  I9I 

learned  how  to  use  their  wealth  for  noble  objects. 
But  these  appear  to  be  the  exceptions.  The  major- 
ity seem  not  yet  to  have  learned  that  high  art. 
These  know  no  way  to  show  their  wealth  except  on 
their  persons  or  their  houses  or  their  horses,  and 
in  devising  a  round  of  festive  excitements  for  every 
season  to  fill  up  the  year.  And  this  spirit  has  in- 
fected nearly  all  classes  of  society.  Families  of 
smaller  means  ape,  in  narrower  way,  these  false 
methods  of  the  rich,  and  actually  stint  themselves 
in  respect  to  some  of  the  higher  satisfactions  of 
life  which  are  within  their  reach  in  order  that  they 
may  put  on  the  appearance  of  vulgar  fashion. 
Thus  moral  earnestness  in  all  grades  of  society  is 
very  much  at  a  discount,  and  shines  with  a  beauty 
all  the  greater  in  the  cases  where  we  do  behold  it. 
The  old-fashioned  virtues  of  simplicity  and  self- 
denial  in  respect  to  the  material  pleasures  of  life, 
for  the  sake  of  a  high  aim  which  the  mind  or  the 
conscience  has  set,  are  becoming  too  rare;  and 
young  people  are  bred  too  much  under  the  idea  that 
they  must  be  having  "a  good  time," — their  concep- 
tion of  "a  good  time"  being  generally  some  form 
of  pleasurable  excitement  for  the  senses, —  or  else 
they  are  not  getting  their  share  of  life's  satisfac- 
tions. Thus,  all  through  society,  the  aims  of 
people  are  set  upon  the  lower,  material  objects  of 
life,  and  the  actual  standard  of  conduct  is  self- 
indulgence  rather  than  self-consecration.  The 
power  of  Mammon,  too,  with  its  selfish  greed,  is 
fatally  corrupting  our  politics,  so  that   it   is  often 


192  RATIONAL    GROUNDS    FOR    WORSHIP 

said  that  an  honest  poor  man,  though  well  fitted  for 
the  duties,  cannot  afford  to  enter  political  life,  or 
is  not  allowed  to  enter  it  by  the  political  rings. 
And  business  has  developed  a  code  of  conduct  of  its 
own,  on  the  plea  that  it  cannot  live  by  the  ordinary 
moral  code  of  honesty  and  sincerity. 

Now,  against  this  prevailing  lowness  and  practi- 
cal materialism  of  human  life,  this  pampering  in- 
dulgence of  the  flesh,  these  strong  forces  of  self- 
ish greed  and  cunning  and  sensual  pleasure,  the 
Church  stands  proclaiming  for  humanity  higher 
hopes  and  nobler  satisfactions,  or  should  so  stand. 
Though  it  does  its  work  very  imperfectly,  it  is  to 
be  honored  for  the  attempt  to  do  it.  It  is  its  func- 
tion to  recall  to  people  the  fact  that  there  is  a  part 
of  human  nature  which  is  capable  of  loftier  themes 
than  the  rise  and  fall  of  stocks  or  the  fluctuations 
of  trade  or  social  festivities  or  a  neighborhood's 
gossip.  It  is  its  high  office  to  summon  people  to  a 
place  where  one  moral  law  is  to  be  declared  for  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  mankind,  —  for  the  rich  and 
the  poor,  for  politics  and  trade,  for  the  home  and 
the  street.  It  should  hold  up  before  bewildered 
and  stumbling  consciences  the  attractiveness  of  the 
virtues  of  purity,  temperance,  self-control,  sincer- 
ity, mutual  justice  and  beneficence  between  man 
and  man.  Above  all,  it  may  point  out  the  value  of 
those  priceless  and  immortal  possessions  which, 
whatever  may  be  the  outward  lot,  even  though  it 
be  one  of  deprivation,  hardship,  and  sorrow,  are 
the  inalienable  property  of  the  pure  heart  and  the 


RATIONAL    GROUNDS    FOR    WORSHIP  I93 

upright  mind.  In  a  word,  the  Church  stands, 
when  it  fulfils  its  mission,  for  the  life  of  the  spirit 
and  for  the  joys  that  are  the  fruit  thereof,  as 
against  the  life  given  over  to  the  sway  of  material 
passions  and  objects.  Matthew  Arnold  summed 
up  his  characterization  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 
by  classing  him  as  one  to  whom  after  generations 
would  resort  as  "the  friend  and  aider  of  those  who 
would  live  in  the  spirit."  So  would  I  claim  the 
continuance  of  the  Church,  rationally  organized 
and  open  to  advancing  truth,  because  it  is,  and 
may  be  vastly  more  than  it  now  is,  the  friend  and 
aider  of  those  who  would  live  in  the  spirit. 

But  I  go  farther  than  this.  I  have  another  and 
still  deeper  reason  for  my  belief  that  religious  in- 
stitutions will  in  some  shape  continue  for  supply- 
ing a  need  of  human  nature.  This  reason  is  that 
they  express,  as  nothing  else  does,  man's  sense  of 
his  relation  to  that  Supreme  Power  in  the  universe 
which  science  calls  the  Eternal  Energy  in  all 
things,  which  religion  has  called,  in  simplest 
phrase,  the  Most  High,  but  which  is  really  beyond 
and  above  all  our  definitions  and  names.  We  in 
our  English  tongue  say  "God";  yet  the  word  only 
hints  at  an  Infinite  Reality  which  outrides  all  our 
powers  of  thought.  But,  because  this  Supreme 
Power  is  more  inconceivable  and  more  fraught  with 
mystery  than  some  of  the  old  creeds  represented,  it 
is  none  the  less  a  real  power,  and  one  with  which 
we  daily  have  to  do.  If  any  think  to  construct 
human  life  without  this  factor,  however  much  they 


194  RATIONAL    GROUNDS    FOR    WORSHIP 

may  quarrel  with  the  theological  representations  of 
it,  they  certainly  have  cast  off  as  well  all  logical 
reckoning,  having  given  ujd  that  which  is  not  only 
the  Highest,  but  the  basis  of  all, — 

"  Path,  Motive,  Guide,  Original,  and  End." 

Religion  may  be  defined,  in  its  strictest  philosoph- 
ical sense,  as  the  human  consciousness  of  relation- 
ship to  this  Power  and  the  effort  to  practical 
harmony  therewith;  and  religious  institutions,  in- 
cluding the  so-called  services  of  worship,  are  an 
organized  expression  of  this  relation  and  effort. 
Their  function  is  to  deepen  and  strengthen  the 
consciousness  of  the  relation  and  to  keep  actively 
alive  the  sense  of  human  obligation  to  Divine 
Law.  And,  by  the  new  interpretations  of  Divine 
Power  which  science  is  giving  us,  I  believe  that 
the  obligations  of  mankind  thereto  are  strength- 
ened rather  than  weakened.  On  this  point  I  am 
compelled  to  take  issue  with  the  current  teaching 
of  some  of  my  radical  friends  and  colaborers  in  the 
work  of  religious  reform.  One  of  these  in  a  recent 
address  said:  "Duties  to  man  and  duties  to  God  is 
the  common  classification.  But  there  are  no  duties 
to  God,  in  that  sense,  .  .  .  and  the  only  duty 
there  is  to  God  is  a  duty  to  man."  And  another 
said  on  the  same  occasion:  "God  needs  none  of 
our  devotion:  he  has  all  the  honor  and  glory  that 
he  wants;  but  man  needs  to  be  uplifted.  It  has 
heretofore  been,  '  Everything  for  God,  and  nothing 
for  man' ;  and  now  wc  wish  to  change  that  and  say, 


RATIONAL    GROUNDS    FOR    WORSHIP  I95 

'All  for  man,  and  God  will  take  care  of  himself.'  " 
I  have  great  respect  for  the  mental  ability  of  both 
of  these  friends,  and  their  earnest  moral  characters 
I  reverence.  I  have  entire  sympathy,  too,  with 
the  motive  underlying  these  utterances,  and  under- 
stand their  point  of  view.  Their  moral  indigna- 
tion is  excited,  and  justly,  against  the  formalistic 
worship,  the  merely  ceremonial  acts  of  piety,  which 
have  prevailed  and  still  prevail  so  largely  in  the 
Church,  while  the  pious  devotees  and  the  churches 
in  which  they  dominate  utterly  forget  the  weightier 
matters  of  justice  and  mercy  to  man.  In  denounc- 
ing religion  and  worship  of  this  sort,  I  go  with 
these  critics  to  the  full.  And  there  is  ample  Bible 
authority,  if  that  be  needed,  for  such  denunciation 
in  the  scathing  words  with  which  Jesus  and  Isaiah 
rebuked  these  hypocritical  worshippers  of  their 
respective  times,  who  made  many  prayers,  but  for- 
got the  moral  law.  Such  denunciation  comes, 
indeed,   from  the  deepest  places  of  religion. 

Nevertheless,  I  believe  that  that  old  phrase, 
"duties  to  God,"  as  something  more  than  though 
always  implying  "duties  to  man,"  has  still  a  dis- 
tinct and  valid  meaning.  At  least,  to  my  mind, 
to  deny  the  truth  of  the  phrase  leads  to  a  greater 
untruth  than  to  affirm  it.  With  all  respect  to 
these  objectors,  it  seems  to  me  that  in  these  utter- 
ances their  thought  is  still  entangled  in  the  meshes 
of  the  theological  creeds  which  they  have  discarded, 
and  hence  their  logic  in  this  particular  halts;  and 
their    radicalism,    after   all,   though    so    sweeping, 


196  RATIONAL    GROUNDS    FOR    WORSHIP 

does  not  go  down  to  the  root  of  things.  Both  of 
them  are  sons  of  orthodox  clergymen,  and  their 
early  training  was  under  the  old  creeds  of  Ortho- 
doxy. It  is  difficult  for  those  who  up  to  mature 
life  have  been  indoctrinated  in  that  faith,  and  then 
change  their  belief  for  liberal  views,  not  to  con- 
tinue to  associate  religion  and  religious  institu- 
tions with  the  false  conceptions  which  they  have 
abjured.  When  I  speak  of  religious  services  as  a 
special  expression  of  human  obligations  to  Deity, 
and  as  still  having  in  that  sense  a  true  and  very 
vital  meaning,  I  am  not  thinking,  as  these  critics 
appear  to  be,  of  that  theological  image  of  a  ma- 
jestic being  seated  with  sovereign  power  in  the 
skies,  whose  ear  is  pleased  with  praises,  and  who 
hears  and  answers  petitions,  like  a  human  monarch. 
Not  at  all.  Nothing  whatever  of  that  Calvinistic 
Jehovah-conception  of  Deity  is  in  my  mind.  I  am 
thinking  of  the  Infinite  Energy  which  is,  at  every 
moment,  the  law  and  life  of  the  universe,  and  of 
which  on  this  planet  man  himself,  with  his  moral 
sense,  capacity,  and  aspirings,  is  the  highest  mani- 
festation. I  am  thinking  of  a  Power  as  Source 
and  Sustainer  of  this  universe,  entirely  compatible 
with  the  scientific  doctrine  of  evolution.  Take 
even  Herbert  Spencer's  latest  statement  of  his 
unknowable  principle  that  is  at  the  root  of  all 
the  world-forces,  transformations,  and  phenomena, 
"the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy  whence  all 
things  proceed," — take  even  that  for  a  definition 
of    Deity,    there    would    be   very  ample    and    solid 


RATIONAL    GROUNDS    FOR    WORSHIP  IQ/ 

ground  for  the  idea  of  obligation  to  this  Power. 
Man  is  indebted  to  it  for  all  that  he  is,  and  for  all 
that  he  is  capable  of  knowing  and]  doing  and  en- 
joying. From  it  come  his  very  ideas  of  justice 
and  kindness  and  of  all  other  duties  to  his  fellow- 
man.  That  which  so  nobly  serves  him  he  is  bound 
in  turn  to  serve.  He  is  not  only  gifted  to  see  the 
ideal  right  which  is  the  aim  of  the  universe,  but 
he  is  equipped  with  faculties  to  help  the  aim 
onward  to  realization.  It  is  evident,  therefore, 
that  our  free-thought  friend  must  have  been  think- 
ing of  his  father's  idea  of  God  when  he  said  that 
God  needs  no  devotion  and  help  from  us,  but  will 
take  care  of  himself.  The  Calvinistic  God  did, 
indeed,  take  care  of  his  own  interests,  and  elected 
man  to  grace  or  doomed  him  to  reprobation  solely 
by  his  own  almighty  decree,  let  man  do  or  pray  as 
he  would.  But  the  God  of  the  evolution  philoso- 
phy, the  Deity  of  reason  and  science,  does  need 
man's  thought,  man's  devotion  and  help,  in  carry- 
ing forward  the  plan  of  the  universe;  for  man  has 
been  admitted  as  a  co-worker  with  the  Eternal 
Power  toward  the  realizations  of  the  highest  be- 
neficence and  happiness,  and  is  under  obligations, 
which  he  cannot  ignore,  to  render  his  best  service. 
It  is,  thus,  from  our  duty  to  serve  the  highest  Law 
and  Life  of  the  universe  that  our  duties  to  man 
are  derived.  And  one  of  the  friends  to  whom  I 
have  referred  recognizes  this  thought  in  the  same 
address.  He  says:  "It  is  at  no  man's  option 
whether    justice    and    honor    bind    him.      Man    no 


198  RATIONAL    GROUNDS    FOR    WORSHIP 

more  creates  the  moral  world  of  obligation  than  he 
does  the  physical  one  of  fact :  he  has  only  to  fit 
himself  into  it,  and  let  its  sublimity  make  him 
sublime.  Man  is  not  the  summit  of  things.  As 
the  heavens  bend  over  his  body  and  the  stars  unal- 
terably shine,  so  the  moral  law  arches  over  the  soul 
of  man;  and  he  is  greatest  as  he  bends  in  lowly 
worship  to  it." 

Now,  I  do  not  say  that  this  Spencerian  concep- 
tion of  the  Ultimate  Power  contains  all  that  can 
be  rationally  included  in  the  idea  of  God.  I  have 
quoted  this  because  it  is  pretty  generally  accepted 
by  rationalistic  and  radical  thinkers  to-day.  But, 
even  if  this  were  all  that  can  be  affirmed,  it  leaves 
ample  room  not  only  for  a  religious  philosophy  but 
for  religious  institutions.  It  declares  man  to  be 
every  moment  in  the  presence  of  an  Infinite  and 
Eternal  Power  which  has  given  him  creation,  sus- 
tenance, life,  and  not  only  physical  life,  but  men- 
tal and  moral  life;  and  in  his  mental  and  moral 
life  has  given  also  the  law  and  the  possible  self- 
direction  by  which  his  life  may  ascend  to  larger 
capacities  and  richer  realizations. 

What  a  realm  of  high  themes  is  open  for  human 
thought  by  such  a  relationship  as  this!  What 
heroisms  of  endeavor  does  it  make  possible!  This 
Infinite  Energy  is  a  living  power:  it  is  the  in- 
spiration of  the  life  of  the  universe  and  of  the 
soul  of  man.  More  literally  from  such  a  philos- 
ophy than  from  the  old  theology  even  may  man 
exclaim,  "My  heart  and  my  flesh  cry  out  for  the 


RATIONAL    GROUNDS    FOR    WORSHIP  I99 

living  God," — for  more  and  more  of  that  vital 
creative  power  within,  that  perception  of  and  obe- 
dience to  the  law  of  life  which  shall  be  health  to 
body  and  mind,  inspiring  purer  purposes  and  lift- 
ing to  saner  thoughts  and  joys.  Among  all  the 
institutions  of  man  shall  there  not  remain  one 
which  shall  attempt  to  express  this  august  and 
mysterious,  but  most  vital  and  real  and  fundamental 
of  all  his  relationships,  —  that  relationship  from 
which  he  cannot  possibly  escape?  and  not  only  at- 
tempt to  express  this  relationship,  but  to  incite 
people  more  fittingly  and  worthily  to  feel  the  high 
obligations  it  involves  and  to  inspire  them  with 
stronger  purpose  to  perform  well  their  part  in  this 
high  partnership  wherein  divine  law  is  executed 
through  human  action?  So  long  as  the  human  heart 
is  capable  of  being  stirred  to  loftier  and  more  heroic 
impulses  by  earnest  speech  on  the  highest  themes, 
or  by  music  and  poetry  and  art,  or  by  the  silent 
sympathy  that  leaps  from  heart  to  heart  when  num- 
bers come  together  with  a  common  purpose,  so 
long,  I  think,  will  some  form  of  outward  temple 
stand, —  stand  as  a  symbol  of  living  union  between 
man  and  the  Most  High,  and  serve  as  a  vestibule 
through  which  the  worshippers  may  pass  to  that 
inner  worship  which  is  in  spirit  and  in  truth  and 
in  living  character. 


THE    WORLD'S    PARLIAMENT   OF  RELIG- 
IONS:   ITS    SIGNIFICANCE   AND 
POSSIBLE    RESULTS. 

It  would  seem  as  if  great  eras  in  the  progress 
of  mankind  should  be  marked  outwardly  by  great 
events.  Yet  this  is  not  always  so.  At  least  the 
date  historically  accepted  as  the  beginning  of 
a  new  era  may  have  been  distinguished  by  no 
incidents  which  at  the  time  were  noted  as  ex- 
traordinary. In  such  cases  posthumous  legend, 
generations  afterward,  is  apt  to  weave  fitting  dra- 
matic draperies  of  circumstance  for  signalizing 
the  new  historical  departure.  But,  again,  great 
epochs  in  history  are  not  infrequently  marked  by 
correspondingly  conspicuous  events,  by  incidents 
which  at  the  time  were  seen  and  felt  to  be  great 
and  epoch-making.  Particular  battles  have  changed 
the  political  maps  of  continents  and  the  destinies 
of  nations.  There  have  been  eminent  ecclesiasti- 
cal councils  whose  decrees  have  fixed  the  religious 
beliefs  of  men  and  women  for  centuries.  The 
adoption  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  by  the 
Colonial  Congress  was  a  most  meet  and  noble 
birthmark  of  this  American  republic  of  sixty-five 
millions   of  free   people.      In   the  nineteenth   cen- 


THE    world's    parliament    OF    RELIGIONS       201 

tury,  and  especially  in  this  latter  half  of  the 
century,  the  progress  of  mankind  has  been  so  mar- 
vellously rapid  all  along  the  lines  of  human  activ- 
ity, and  more  particularly  in  the  development  of 
material  civilization  and  in  the  advancement  of 
learning,  philanthropy,  and  all  branches  of  science, 
that  we  appear  to  be  in  the  midst  of  a  new  era 
without  being  able  to  point  to  any  one  conspicuous 
event  to  herald  its  beginning.  As  a  part  of  this 
general  progress,  a  most  remarkable  evolution  in 
religious  beliefs  and  activities  has  been  taking 
place.  I  am,  indeed,  one  of  those  who  believe 
that  the  forces  that  have  produced  the  various  re- 
ligions among  men  have  not  exhausted  their  crea- 
tive capacity,  but  that  the  intellect  and  heart  of 
mankind  to-day,  in  vital  touch  with  these  forces, 
are  in  the  birth-struggles  of  a  new  religion.  That 
coming  religion  which  the  sagacious  Count  Cavour 
predicted  thirty  years  ago,  that  new  Church  which 
our  own  prophet-eyed  Emerson  foresaw  and  fore- 
told, is  actually  dawning  before  the  eyes  of  this 
generation,  whether  we  all  consciously  behold  it  or 
not.  Though  evolving  gradually  from  the  old,  it 
may  rightly  be  called  a  new  religion,  because  all 
the  tendencies  prognosticate  an  essentially  new 
basis  of  faith,  new  articles  of  belief,  new  objects 
and  methods  of  organized  activity. 

And  of  this  coming  religion  the  World's  Par- 
liament of  Religions,  in  connection  with,  the  In- 
ternational Columbian  Exposition  in  Chicago,  is 
pre-eminently    the    most    significant    general    sign 


202      THE    WORLD  S    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS 

that  has  yet  appeared.  It  is  an  event  known  now 
in  all  parts  of  the  world  and  to  be  memorable  in 
history,  and  will  worthily  mark,  in  the  annals  of 
mankind,  the  opening  of  the  new  religious  era, 
whose  dawn  we  may  discern  on  the  horizon  of  the 
future.  More  than  twenty  years  back  a  fond  vision 
appeared  to  me  of  some  such  gathering  of  the 
world's  faiths;  but  little  did  I  dream  that  my 
modest  prophecy  was  so  soon  to  be  realized, —  real- 
ized in  somewhat  different  purpose  and  shape,  but 
even  more  grandly  than  I  had  dared  to  hope,  and 
under  auspices  such  as  then  I  could  not  imagine  as 
possibly  uniting  in  a  religious  conception  and  en- 
terprise so  world-wide  and  nobly  inclusive.  It  is 
from  this  point  of  view,  and  with  this  sense  of  the 
greatness  of  the  topic,  however  inadequately  I 
shall  treat  it,  that  I  have  invited  you  here  to  con- 
sider with  me  the  theological  significance  and  the 
possible  practical  results  of  that  unique  repre- 
sentative assembly,  —  the  World's  Parliament  of 
Religions. 

Even  the  great  Exposition  at  Chicago  —  which, 
taken  all  in  all,  is  the  grandest  representation  of 
the  achievements  of  human  art  and  industry  the 
world  has  ever  seen  —  paled  its  glories  last  month 
before  the  august  assemblage  of  the  world's  faiths. 
The  eager  crowds  of  people  that  filled  Columbus 
Hall  for  seventeen  days,  and  thronged  in  the  pas- 
sage-ways leading  thereto,  bore  unconscious  testi- 
mony to  the  fact,  well  stated  by  the  presiding 
chairman,   that   "there   is   a    spiritual    root    to    all 


THE   world's    parliament    OF    RELIGIONS       203 

human   progress."      I  shall  ever  count  it  among  the 
inestimable  high  enjoyments  of  my  life  that  it  was 
my  good  fortune  to  be  present  at  the  opening  of 
the   Parliament,  and  to  witness  the  procession  of 
the    World's    Religions,    as    their    representatives, 
walking  arm  in  arm,  entered  the  hall,  and  marched 
to    the    broad    platform    together,    their    faces    all 
beaming    with    one     harmonious    and    gladdening 
light.      At  the  head  of  the  procession  walked  the 
president  of  the  Parliament  and   its  auxiliary  con- 
gresses, a  Swedenborgian   layman,  and  at  his  side 
scarlet-robed  Cardinal  Gibbons,  the  highest  official 
of    the    Roman    Catholic   Church   in  this   country. 
There    followed     Jew    and    Greek,    Christian    and 
Buddhist,  Brahman  and  Mohammedan,    Parsee  and 
Confucian,  Indian  monk  and  Methodist  missionary. 
All    races  and   colors  and  nationalities,  and    both 
sexes,  and  all  the  great  religions   of  the  globe,  and 
their  various   sects.    Christian  and    non-Christian, 
there  mingled  together  in  one  triumphal  march  of 
human  brotherhood.      And,  when  the  platform  was 
reached  and  the  delegates  were  seated,   the  spec- 
tacle was   as    picturesque  as  it    was  august.      The 
Japanese  High  Priest  of  Shintoism  out-cardinalled 
the   Cardinal    in   the   gorgeousness  of   his  apparel. 
The  white-robed   Buddhist  from    Calcutta   won  all 
eyes  by  the  purity  of    his   dress,   as   afterward   he 
won  ears  by  the  purity  of  his   English  speech,  and 
hearts  by  the  purity  of  his  sentiments.      The  high- 
caste  Brahmanical   monk  from   India  made  some  of 
us  stiffly  dressed  Americans  envy  his   loosely  flow- 


204      THE    WORLD  S    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS 

ing  and  graceful  silken  garments.  The  dignified 
Chinese  Confucian  was  at  ease  in  the  richly  col- 
ored garb  of  his  native  land.  The  venerable  arch- 
bishop of  Zante,  at  the  head  of  a  marked  group  of 
representatives  of  the  Greek  Church,  was  not  be- 
hind his  Catholic  brothers  in  the  decorative  insig- 
nia of  his  high  office.  Even  the  women  of  India 
were  represented  by  a  young  woman  in  native  dress 
from  Bombay,  educated  and  eloquent.  The  whole 
scene  presented  the  materials  of  a  picture,  which 
some  great  painter  ought  to  have  been  there  to 
sketch, —  a  picture  of  the  coming  peace  among  the 
faiths  of  the  world.  No  one  could  have  been  pres- 
ent without  feeling  that  he  was  a  participant  in  an 
event  which  is  to  become  one  of  the  great  epochs 
in  the  history  of  mankind. 

That  first  day  was  devoted  entirely  to  addresses  of 
welcome,  and  of  responses  from  the  distinguished 
representatives  of  the  various  churches  and  religions 
there  assembled.  Though  several  of  the  speakers 
referred,  with  perfect  courtesy  and  propriety,  to 
their  loyalty  to  their  own  faith  and  church,  yet 
there  was  not  a  word  throughout  the  day  which 
jarred  the  harmony  of  sentiment  that  was  felt  and 
spiritually  breathed  as  an  atmosphere  binding  the 
speakers  and  the  great  assemblage  together.  As  if 
by  a  common  instinct,  the  speakers  found  their 
points  of  agreement,  with  surprise  and  joy  that 
they  were  so  many,  and  forgot  for  the  time  their 
differences.  The  key-note  of  the  Parliament  was 
struck    by    the    chairman     of    the     Committee    of 


THE   WORLD  S    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS       20$ 

Arrangements,  Rev.  Dr.  Barrows,  in  his  welcom- 
ing address,  when  he  said,  ''We  are  here  as 
members  of  a  Parliament  of  Religions  over  which 
flies  no  sectarian  flag,  which  is  to  be  stampeded 
by  no  sectarian  war-cries,  but  where,  for  the  first 
time  in  a  large  world-council,  is  lifted  up  the 
banner  of  love,  fellowship,  and  brotherhood." 
And  that  note  was  not  lost  nor  slurred  through  the 
whole  day;  but  from  the  varied  voices  and  mani- 
fold tongues,  together  with  one  accord  in  one  place 
from  all  round  the  globe,  rose  a  grand  symphony 
of  common  aspiration,  faith,  and  hope.  It  was 
worth  going  several  thousand  miles  to  hear  the 
same  Presbyterian  doctor  of  divinity  from  whom 
I  have  just  quoted  utter  in  his  address  of  greeting 
such  sentences  as  these:  "Welcome  to  the  men 
and  women  of  Israel,  the  standing  miracle  of  na- 
tions and  religions!  Welcome  to  the  disciples  of 
Prince  Siddartha,  the  many  millions  who  cherish 
in  their  hearts  Lord  Buddha  as  the  Light  of  Asia! 
Welcome  to  the  high  priest  of  the  national  religion 
of  Japan!  Welcome  to  the  men  of  India,  and  all 
faiths!  "  It  was  worth  going  thousands  of  miles  to 
hear  a  Cardinal  of  the  Church  of  Rome  say,  "As 
man  is  one  people,  one  family,  we  recognize  God 
as  our  common  Father  and  Christ  as  our  brother  "  ; 
or  to  hear  on  the  same  platform  a  negro  bishop 
from  Africa  exclaim,  in  his  joy  of  congratulations 
for  his  people,  "This  is  the  first  gathering  of  all 
the  races  of  men  as  brothers  since  Noah  with  his 
sons  landed  on  Mount  Ararat."     And  it  was  worth 


206      THE    world's    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS 

a  lifetime  of  sixty  years  to  have  lived  to  hear,  in  a 
city  near  the  heart  of  this  great  country,  educated 
and  refined  men  whom  Christendom  has  been  wont 
to  stigmatize  as  heathen  giving  not  only  equally 
cordial  answer  to  this  cordial  welcome,  but,  out  of 
their  own  Oriental  faiths  and  their  own  scriptures, 
responding  with  utterance  of  the  same  humane  and 
celestial  sentiments  of  love,  benevolence,  tolera- 
tion, brotherhood,  and  peace,  and  evincing  the 
same  aspirations  after  truth,  purity,  and  holy 
living. 

That  opening  day  alone  seemed  suddenly  to  have 
advanced  liberal  faith  in  the  world  a  hundred 
years.  To  none  who  was  there  and  imbibed  the 
spirit  of  that  meeting  could  it  seem  possible  that 
the  fences  between  the  faiths  should  ever  again 
appear  so  high,  the  partition  walls  so  thick,  as 
heretofore  they  have  been.  The  brotherhood  of 
the  faiths  and  the  races  was  there  actually  felt  and 
tasted.  Henceforth  this  was  to  be  no  abstraction 
of  theological  thinking,  no  visionary  goal  of  relig- 
ious ethics,  but  must  take  its  place  as  a  vital, 
practical  purpose,  which  religion  and  social  ethics 
are  to  join  forces  to  achieve.  For  the  five  or  six 
thousand  people  who  at  different  hours  made  that 
Pentecostal  assembly,  it  was  demonstrated  to  the 
eye  and  the  ear,  to  the  head  and  the  heart,  that  the 
faiths  of  the  earth  are  of  one  root  and  may  have 
by  right  culture  one  fruitage,  that  all  the  religions 
and  races  of  men  are  realms  of  one  Power,  eternal, 
omnipresent,   working    in   and    through  all    things 


THE    WORLD  S    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS       20J 

and  all  men  for  right  and  for  truth.  And  these 
thousands  of  men  and  women,  it  was  felt,  could 
not  scatter  to  their  distant  homes  around  the  globe 
without  a  broader,  truer  vision,  and  a  more  broth- 
erly purpose  in  their  hearts  to  work  henceforth,  in 
their  neighborhoods,  communities,  nations,  and 
churches,  somewhat  less  for  sect  and  creed,  and  a 
great  deal  more  for  the  new  old  gospel  of  the 
Golden  Rule,  which  has  found  expression  in  so 
many  of  the  faiths,  and  for  peace  on  earth  and  good 
will  among  men. 

By  that  first  day's  exercises  the  great  company 
was  lifted  to  this  lofty  ecstasy  of  a  new  and  large 
religious  enthusiasm,  consecration,  and  hope.  It 
was  the  expressions  which  were  most  pronounced 
and  pointed  in  the  direction  of  the  widest  religious 
tolerance,  liberty,  and  charity,  and  of  a  growing 
unity,  fraternity,  and  peace  among  the  faiths  of 
mankind,  that  were  received  by  the  assembled  mul- 
titude with  the  most  marked  demonstrations  of 
favor.  More  than  once  that  day  the  hearers  could 
not  content  themselves  with  the  usual  methods  of 
applause,  but  rose  spontaneously  to  their  feet  with 
waving  of  handkerchiefs  and  cries  of  enthusiasm. 
F'or  that  day,  at  least,  the  races,  colors,  and  relig- 
ions were  lifted  above  all  their  differences  and  an- 
tagonisms, and  their  inmost  aims  and  hopes  flashed 
out  and  blended  together  in  one  glowing  spiritual 
vision  of  a  coming  practical  human  brotherhood. 

But  could  this  pentecostal  flood  of  fraternal 
love,  this  high  altitude  of  spiritual  enthusiasm,  be 


208       THE   world's    PARLIAMENT   OF    RELIGIONS 

sustained  for  seventeen  days?  When  the  Parlia- 
ment should  settle  down  to  its  more  solid  tasks,  to 
the  reading  and  hearing  of  elaborate  papers,  and 
the  analytical  presentation  of  the  beliefs,  aims, 
and  work  of  the  various  churches  and  religions, 
would  not  the  interest  subside,  the  old  differences 
and  conflicts  appear  again,  and  the  spiritual  unity 
be  broken  and  lost  ?  There  were  those  present  on 
that  first  day  who  almost  felt  sorry  that  anything 
more  was  to  be  attempted.  They  were  apprehen- 
sive lest  this  high  tide  of  enthusiasm  for  religious 
and  racial  brotherhood  should  ebb,  only  leaving 
more  painfully  evident  than  before  the  artificial 
dykes  and  mud-banks  which  were  still  to  separate 
those  who  for  one  long  day  had  been  lifted  to  the 
high  places  of  spiritual  vision,  where  they  had  dis- 
cerned together  the  dawning  era  of  fraternal  amity 
and  co-operation.  But  these  apprehensions  were 
not  fulfilled.  Popular  interest  in  the  meetings  in- 
creased rather  than  diminished,  and  was  sustained 
to  the  end.  A  crowd  was  ever  waiting  outside  for 
admission  to  the  crowded  hall,  to  take  the  places  of 
those  who  might  come  out,  when  the  doors  were 
opened  between  the  readings  of  the  papers;  and 
there  was  hardly  a  single  session  when  some  un- 
expected incident  did  not  occur  or  some  specially 
fine  sentiment  was  not  uttered,  arousing  the  large 
assembly  to  the  same  enthusiastic  demonstrations 
that  marked  the  first  day.  The  key-note  of  the 
opening  ceremonial  day  was  not  lost,  indeed,  in 
the  work-days  that  followed.      If   twice  or  thrice  a 


THE   WORLD  S    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS       2O9 

jarring  note  was  heard,  the  discordant  twang  of 
some  individual  dogmatist's  conceit,  like  Mr.  Jo- 
seph Cook's,  it  was  soon  lost  to  sound,  if  not  for- 
gotten, in  the  overwhelming  unity  of  spirit  which 
carried  the  Parliament  along,  amidst  all  differences 
of  belief  and  statements,  in  the  line  of  its  declared 
purpose.  And,  memorable  as  was  the  opening 
day,  the  Parliament  must  yet  be  considered  in  its 
entirety,  before  we  can  comprehend  its  full  sig- 
nificance and  the  possible  results  which  may  flow 
from  it. 

On  this  question  of  the  significance  and  possible 
results  of  the  Parliament  much  needed  light  may 
be  thrown  by  keeping  in  mind  the  specified  objects 
for  which  this  unique  gathering  was  called  and  the 
rules  which  were  to  govern  it.  Let  me,  therefore, 
quote  the  most  important  of  these  from  the  printed 
statement  of  the  general  Committee  of  Arrange- 
ments early  in    1892:  — 

OBJECTS    OF    THE    WORLD's    PARLIAMENT    OF 
RELIGIONS. 

1.  To  bring  together  in  conference,  for  the 
first  time  in  history,  the  leading  representatives  of 
the  great  Historic  Religions  of  the  world. 

2.  To  show  to  men,  in  the  most  impressive  way, 
what  and  how  many  important  truths  the  various 
Religions  hold  and  teach  in  common. 

3.  To  promote  and  deepen  the  spirit  of  true 
brotherhood  among  the  Religions  of  the  world, 
through    friendly    conference    and     mutual     good 


2IO      THE    WORLDS    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS 

understanding,  while  not  seeking  to  foster  the 
temper  of  indifferentism,  and  not  striving  to 
achieve  any  formal   and  outward   unity. 

4.  To  set  forth,  by  those  most  competent  to 
speak,  what  are  deemed  the  important  distinctive 
truths  held  and  taught  by  each  Religion,  and  by 
the  various  chief  branches  of  Christendom. 

5.  To  indicate  the  impregnable  foundations  of 
Theism,  and  the  reasons  for  man's  faith  in  Immor- 
tality, and  thus  to  unite  and  strengthen  the  forces 
which  are  adverse  to  a  materialistic  philosophy  of 
the  universe. 

6.  To  secure  from  leading  scholars  representing 
Brahman,  Buddhist,  Confucian,  Parsee,  Mohamme- 
dan, Jewish,  and  other  Faiths,  and  from  represent- 
atives of  the  various  churches  of  Christendom, 
full  and  accurate  statements  of  the  spiritual  and 
other  effects  of  the  Religions  which  they  hold  upon 
the  Literature,  Art,  Commerce,  Government,  Do- 
mestic and  Social  Life  of  the  peoples  among 
whom  these  Faiths  have  prevailed. 

7.  To  inquire  what  light  each  Religion  has 
afforded,  or  may  afford,  to  the  other  Religions  of 
the  world. 


9.  To  discover  from  competent  men,  what  light 
Religion  has  to  throw  upon  the  great  problems  of 
the  present  age,  especially  the  important  questions 
connected  with  Temperance,  Labor,  Education, 
Wealth,    and  Poverty. 

10.  To  bring  the  nations  of  the  earth  into  a 
more  friendly  fellowship,  in  the  hope  of  securing 
permanent   international  peace. 


THE    WORLDS    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS       211 


CONDITIONS    AND    SPECIFICATIONS. 

1.  Those  taking  part  in  the  Parliament  .  .  .  are 
carefully  to  observe  the  spirit  and  principles  set 
forth  in  the  Preliminary  Address  of  this  Com- 
mittee. 

2.  The  speakers  accepting  the  invitation  of  the 
General  Committee  will  state  their  own  beliefs  and 
the  reasons  for  them  with  the  greatest  frankness, 
without,  however,  employing  unfriendly  criticism 
of  other  Faiths. 

3.  The  Parliament  is  to  be  made  a  grand  inter- 
national assembly  for  mutual  conference,  fellow- 
ship, and  information,  and  not  for  controversy,  for 
worship,  for  the  counting  of  votes,  or  for  the  pass- 
ing of  resolutions. 


This  statement  of  objects  and  regulations  makes 
it  clear  that  the  intent  of  the  Parliament  was  edu- 
cational and  fraternal,  and  not  propagandist.  It 
was  to  be  a  mutual  school  of  religion,  wherein  the 
teachers  were  of  all  faiths  and  the  pupils  of  all 
faiths,  —  a  school  of  religion,  with  picturesque 
object-lessons  in  the  study  of  comparative  relig- 
ions. And  the  prearranged  programme  of  the 
school,  both  in  its  general  tenor  and  spirit  and 
in  its  specific  provisions,  made  all  the  teachers, 
whether  they  were  Jews,  Christians,  Parsees, 
Buddhists,  Brahmans,  Mohammedans,  Confucians, 
or  of  any  other  faith,  the  peers  of  one  another. 
Whatever  might  be  their  ecclesiastical  positions  or 
relations  elsewhere,  on  that  platform  they  stood  as 


212       THE    world's    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS 

equals,  each  entitled  to  receive  the  same  considera- 
tion and  courtesy  as  every  other.  And  there  was 
no  tribunal  of  appeal  except  the  common  reason 
and  conscience  of  mankind.  Whatever  mental 
reservations  there  may  have  been  in  the  minds  of 
any  of  the  speakers  (and  of  course  there  were 
such)  as  to  their  own  faith  having  a  special  divine 
origin  miraculously  attested,  they  agreed  to  meet 
In  that  Parliament,  for  the  time  being  at  least, 
other  faiths  as  peers,  and  to  obtrude  no  pre-emp- 
tive claims  to  an  exclusive  divine  revelation  and 
authority  for  their  own.  And  in  this  fact  lies  the 
special  theological  significance  of  the  Parliament. 
Whether  logically  comprehended  as  such  or  not,  it 
was  a  practical  change  of  base  in  the  attitude  of 
the  Christian  Church  (excepting  a  few  small  lib- 
eral sects)  toward  the  pagan  world  and  other  relig- 
ions of  the  globe. 

For,  if  it  be  true,  as  Christendom  has  been  com- 
monly taught,  that  the  Hebrews  had  only  a  partial 
revelation  of  saving  truth  from  God,  and  that  that 
had  been  dimmed  and  lost  by  their  disobedience, 
and  that,  when  Christ  came,  the  whole  world  was 
sunk  in  trespasses  and  sins  and  utter  moral  dark- 
ness, and  that,  without  the  acceptance  of  his  aton- 
ing sacrifice,  all  mankind  was  doomed  to  eternal 
perdition, —  if  this  familiar  system  of  theology  be 
true,  then  it  logically  follows  that  Jew  and  Moham- 
medan and  pagan  must  be  converted  to  faith  in 
Christ's  blood  to  save  them  or  be  lost.  And,  in 
accordance  with  this  logic,  the  attitude  of  orthodox 


THE    world's    parliament    OF    RELIGIONS       213 

Christianity  toward  the  other  religions  of  the  world 
has  hitherto  been  that  their  devotees  were  needy 
subjects  for  conversion  to  the  one  true  and  saving 
faith, —  namely,  the  Christian, —  but  that  they  had 
no  saving  truth  in  their  own  faith.  On  such  a 
basis  of  theology,  since  the  non-Christian  faiths 
were  not  regarded  as  holding  any  truths  promotive 
of  spiritual  progress  or  efficacious  to  salvation,  how 
could  those  faiths,  with  any  logical  consistency,  be 
invited  into  a  Parliament  one  of  whose  objects 
was  declared  to  be  "to  show  what  and  how  many 
important  truths  the  various  Religions  hold  and 
teach  in  common "  ?  Or  if,  as  Christendom  for 
centuries  has  been  systematically  taught,  the  world 
outside  of  Christianity  is  lying  under  dense  spirit- 
ual darkness,  then  what  utter  unreason  to  invite 
representatives  of  non-Christian  faiths  into  this 
great  Parliament  of  Religions  to  tell  us  "what 
light  each  Religion  has  afforded,  or  may  afford,  to 
the  other  Religions  of  the  world"!  How  can  any 
"  light  "  come  out  of  "  utter  darkness  "  ?  Or  if,  out 
of  Christ,  the  whole  world  be  sunk  and  lost  in  tres- 
passes and  sins,  as  all  orthodox  pulpits  used  to 
teach,  then  what  can  Brahman,  Buddhist,  Confu- 
cian, Parsee,  or  Mohammedan  have  to  tell  us  of 
the  spiritual  effect  of  their  faiths  on  personal  and 
social  life,  as  the  Parliament  of  Religions  invited 
them  to  do?  Or,  if  one  religion  only  be  true 
and  all  others  false,  how  can  there  be  any  "true 
brotherhood  "  among  them,  which  it  was  one  of  the 
expressed  objects  of  this   Parliament  "to  promote 


214      THE    WORLDS    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS 

and  deepen"?  Can  there  be  any  "spirit  of 
brotherhood"  between  truth  and  falsehood?  If  the 
old  theological  claim  be  sound  that  Christianity  is 
the  one  and  only  absolutely  true  religion,  and  es- 
sential to  salvation,  then  the  only  possible  relig- 
ious unity  must  be  effected,  not  as  the  World's 
Parliament  prospectus  proposes,  "through  friendly 
conference  and  mutual  good  understanding  among 
the  Religions,"  but  by  the  old  way  of  absolute  con- 
version of  all  the  rest  to  the  one  that  is  true. 
Hence  I  affirm  that  the  World's  Parliament  of 
Religions,  by  its  recognition,  in  its  statement  of 
objects  and  in  its  programme,  of  the  facts  that  the 
various  great  religions  of  the  world  hold  certain 
important  truths  in  common,  that  each  of  them, 
even  the  so-called  pagan,  may  shed  some  light  and 
impart  some  useful  information  for  the  others,  and 
that  among  them  may  be  fostered  friendly  confer- 
ence and  the  spirit  of  true  brotherhood,  has  given 
expressed  and  dramatic  denial  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  that  orthodox  scheme  of  theology 
which    has  for  centuries    dominated  Christendom. 

Similarly,  it  may  be  said  that  other  faiths  that 
have  in  times  past  been  regarded  by  their  adher- 
ents as  containing  an  infallible  revelation  of  truth 
unknown  to  other  religions  have  now,  by  their 
representation  in  this  Parliament,  made  an  implied, 
if  not  open,  confession  of  a  change  of  attitude 
toward  the  rest  of  the  religious  world. 

And  this  change  of  attitude  among  the  faiths  of 
mankind  toward  each  other,  to  which  the  Parlia- 


THE    WORLDS    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS       215 

ment  of  Religions  has  given  so  dramatic  an  expres- 
sion, can  be  no  passing  accidental  occurrence.     It 
is    the    meeting    of    converging    tendencies    which 
have  for  a  quarter-century  been  noted   in  religious 
sentiment  and  thought,  and  been  growing  more  and 
more  marked  every  year.      It   is  one  of  the  results 
of  the  application  of  a  more  scientific  method  of 
study  to  the  history  of  religions.      It  is  a  popular 
triumph  of  spiritual  liberalism,  due  in  part  to  such 
scholarly  work  as  Professor  Max  Miiller  has  been 
doing  in    England,   and   to   the  Hibbert   Lectures, 
and  the  great   scholars  in  France  and  Germany  and 
Holland,    who    have    been  making   of    comparative 
religion  a  science.     It  is  due  in  no  small  degree  to 
many    of    the    Christian    missionaries    themselves, 
who,   going  out  to  the  Orient  to  convert  the  so- 
called  heathen  to  the  one  true  faith,  have  discov- 
ered that  they  were  not  merely  teachers,  but  had 
much  of    value   to   learn   from    the  heathen  faiths. 
One  such   missionary  said    in  the   Parliament   the 
other  day  that  he   had  found  in  the  religion  of  the 
Hindus,    behind  the   idolatries  of   the  masses  and 
the   manifold    names   of    deities,   a  very  clear  and 
pure  conception  of  one  Supreme  Being;  and  it  is  a 
common  thing  now  for  missionaries,  especially  for 
the  more  observant  and  thoughtful  among  them,  to 
acknowledge  not  only  this,  but  the  high  value  of 
the  native  moral   codes  of  the  people  they  are  to 
convert.     The  Parliament   of   Religions  has  come 
as  the  natural  effect  of  these  various  causes,  as  the 
picturesque  climax  of  these  converging  intellectual 


2l6      THE   world's    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS 

and  ethical  tendencies.     And   let  me  say,  further, 
that  the  Parliament   not  only  significantly  marks  a 
change  of  mutual  attitude  among  the  religions  of 
the  world,  and  a  special   change  both   in  attitude 
and  method  on  the  part  of   orthodox   Christianity 
toward  non-Christian  faiths,  but  this  changed  rela- 
tion carries  with  it  by  logical  implication  a  radical 
change  of  base  from  that  scheme  of  Christian  the- 
ology which  has  hitherto  given  motive  and  nerve 
to  Christian  churches  for  the  work  of  their  foreign 
missions.      If  the  basis  of  the  Parliament  of  Relig- 
ions were  to  be  stated  with   logical   consistency,  it 
would   be   in   effect  an  affirmation  similar  to  that 
which  has  become  familiar  in  late  years  to   liberal 
religious  faith;  namely,  that  all  religions  are  more 
or  less  divine,  and  all  of  them  more  or  less  human ; 
or,  as  stated  with  more  scientific  accuracy  by  one 
of  the  prominent  speakers  in  the  Parliament,  a  rep- 
resentative  of  the    "Broad"    Church   of    England, 
"All    religions    are    fundamentally    more    or    less 
true,  and  all  religions  are  superficially  more  or  less 
false."     And   if  methods  of  missionary  work  were 
to   be   shaped    in    logical    accord    with    this    basal 
affirmation,  and  upon  the  model  of  this   Religious 
Parliament's  own  method,  missions  would  hereafter 
be    conducted    not  on  the  principle  of    aggressive 
propagandism   and    absolute    conversion    from    one 
faith  to  another,    but  on  the  principle  of   mutual 
education. 

In  strict  accord  with  its  declared  intention,  the 
Parliament  passed  no  resolutions;  and  there  is  not 


THE   WORLDS    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS       217 

the  slightest  probability  that  it  could  have  adopted 
any  statement  embodying  what  I  am  about  to  say. 
None  the  less  it  was  in  itself  one  of  the  most  emi- 
nent of  the  increasing  signs  of  the  times  that  re- 
ligion is  preparing  to  abandon  its  ancient  basis  of 
authority  attested  by  miracle  for  that  infinitely 
surer  authority  which  it  finds  inherent  in  the 
constitution  of  human  nature  itself  and  in  the  vital 
relations  of  human  nature  to  the  universe.  The 
ancient  type  of  miracle  is  really  dwarfed  to-day 
before  the  stupendous  wonders  which  science  dis- 
closes as  facts  of  nature.  And  if  religion  is  to 
keep  its  place  and  power  in  the  modern  world,  it 
will  not  longer  appeal  to  the  thaumaturgist's  art 
nor  beseech  an  unwilling  god  to  declare  himself  by 
breaking  the  august  and  splendid  order  of  his  daily 
works,  but  will  search  and  toil  rather  to  find  the 
ways  of  harmonious  human  adjustment  with  that 
order  itself.  Leaving  the  region  of  miracle  and 
the  multitude  of  fanciful  speculations  and  conflict- 
ing theologies  which  have  sprung  therefrom,  re- 
ligion is  beginning  to  plant  itself  on  the  more 
solid  ground  of  a  few  simple  and  fundamental  prin- 
ciples which  must  commend  themselves  to  the 
cultivated  reason  and  conscience  of  mankind  the 
world  over.  Many  years  ago  Ram  Mohun  Roy, 
the  originator  of  the  Brahmo  Somaj  movement  in 
India,  published  a  book  entitled  "The  Precepts  of 
Jesus."  It  was  a  most  excellent  collection  of  the 
ethical  and  spiritual  sayings  of  Jesus  skilfully 
separated    from    their    New    Testament   setting   in 


2l8      THE    world's    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS 

miracle  and  myth.  When  called  to  account  for 
this  book  by  some  of  his  Christian  friends  in 
London,  who  charged  that  it  robbed  Christianity 
of  its  supreme  credentials  of  authority,  Ram 
Mohun  Roy  replied  that  these  sublime  precepts 
would  commend  themselves  by  their  own  worth 
to  the  minds  and  hearts  of  his  countrymen;  but, 
if  the  appeal  for  their  authority  was  not  to  their 
own  intrinsic  truth  but  to  miracle,  they  would 
secure  no  standing  in  India,  for  the  ancient  re- 
ligion of  India  had  miracles  far  more  wonderful 
than  any  in  the  New  Testament.  Now  the  Parlia- 
ment of  Religions,  whatever  might  be  the  views  of 
its  individual  members,  and  though  they  joined 
in  no  written  statement,  stood  practically  in  the 
same  position  with  Ram  Mohun  Roy.  Its  har- 
mony of  spirit  and  its  very  existence  were  possible 
because  its  members  were  for  the  time  being 
united  on  a  few  fundamental  principles  which  com- 
mended themselves  as  true  to  the  common  reason 
and  conscience  of  all.  And  they  were  joyously 
content  with  their  simple  platform  of  "Truth  for 
authority,  and  not  authority  for  truth." 

There  have  been  opponents  of  the  Parliament  of 
Religions  in  Christendom  and  in  other  faiths, — • 
some  of  them  powerful  opponents  ecclesiastically 
considered,  notably  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
and  the  Sultan  of  Turkey.  Most  likely  these  oppo- 
nents have  perceived  the  actual  logical  incongruity 
between  the  Parliament  and  their  professed  creeds, 
have  seen  how  the  missionary  religions  especially 


THE   WORLDS    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS       219 

among  which  Christianity  and  Mohammedanism 
have  taken  the  lead,  were  giving  away  their  own 
case  by  consenting  to  meet  the  other  faiths  on 
terms  of  equality  and  fraternity.  But,  powerful  by 
position  as  these  opponents  are,  there  appeared  no 
gaps  in  Columbus  Hall  because  of  their  absence. 
Their  faiths  were  represented  by  subordinates  and 
subjects  who  had  not  the  fear  of  authority  before 
their  eyes.  From  a  logical  point  of  view  the  posi- 
tion of  these  opponents  may  be  worthy  of  greater 
admiration  for  its  soundness  than  was  the  attitude 
of  some  of  the  Parliament's  speakers,  which  was 
that  of  naked  emotion  with  no  shred  of  logic  to 
cover  it.  Yet  the  advance  movements  of  man- 
kind are  not  generally  made  in  the  strict  grooves 
of  logic.  The  impelling  forces  of  progress  are 
found  rather  in  ethical  motives  and  sympathies  of 
the  heart,  which  may  be  only  dimly  conscious,  or 
not  at  all  conscious,  of  their  relation  to  any  system 
of  thought.  So  it  is  safe  to  take  our  position  with 
the  progressive  sympathies  and  the  heart-instincts 
that  are  carrying  mankind  forward  to  larger,  truer, 
and  more  loving  life,  even  though  they  may  be  able 
to  give  a  very  poor  logical  account  of  themselves. 
As  Emerson  said  of  prayer,  "In  your  metaphysics 
you  have  denied  personality  to  the  Deity;  yet, 
when  the  devout  motions  of  the  soul  come,  yield 
to  them  heart  and  life,  though  they  should  clothe 
God  with  shape  and  color.  Leave  your  theory  and 
flee," — so  would  I  say  of  the  World's  Parliament 
of  Religions.     Though  the  Roman  Catholic  and  the 


220      THE    world's    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS 

Greek  and  the  Presbyterian  and  the  Mohammedan, 
and  representatives  of  other  creeds,  may  perchance 
have  found  it  somewhat  difficult  logically  to  square 
their  presence  there  with  their  theological  beliefs, 
yet  it  was  cause  for  devout  congratulation  that  they 
fled  their  theory  and  followed  their  sympathies; 
that,  though  logic  might  forbid,  they  came  and 
shook  hands  together,  and  talked  together  of  the 
truths  they  held  in  common,  and  looked  withal  so 
radiantly  happy  in  their  fraternal  action  that  I  for 
one  was  very  happy  to  be  there,  too,  to  help  cheer 
on  the  whole  illogical  proceeding.  I  prefer  to  go 
forward  with  followers  of  the  heart,  though  their 
movement  may  have  no  logical  coherence  with  the 
theology  of  the  head,  rather  than  to  do  mental 
homage  to  the  stanchest  logicians,  who  are  held 
fast  and  stagnant  in  the  morass  of  false  theological 
premises.  To  paraphrase  Emerson's  sentence, 
"When  the  fraternal  motions  of  the  soul  come, 
yield  to  them  heart  and  life,  though  they  should 
lead  Jew,  Presbyterian,  Mohammedan,  Greek,  and 
Catholic  to  join  hands  as  cobrothers  in  faith. 
Leave  your  logic  to  take  care  of  itself,  and  flee  to 
the  strongholds  of  the  heart."  And  the  logic  will 
take  care  of  itself.  By  and  by  it  will  catch  up 
with  the  larger  action  and  make  a  new  statement  to 
cover  it. 

Hence  I  look  for  great  good  to  come  to  mankind 
as  a  result  of  the  fraternal  mingling  of  faiths  in 
this  Religious  Parliament.  For  one  thing,  I  be- 
lieve it  will  help  toward  these  larger  statements  of 


THE    world's    parliament    OF    RELIGIONS       221 

faith  and  a  revision  of  old  creeds.  Among  those 
who  have  come  under  its  influence  —  and  they  are 
by  no  means  limited  to  the  people  who  were  in 
person  at  the  meetings  —  the  sectarian  spirit  must 
be  less  narrow,  the  dogmatic  temper  less  dominant. 
The  new  creeds  may  contain  fewer  articles  and 
much  less  of  the  metaphysics  of  theological  specu- 
lation, but  a  good  deal  more  of  brotherly  love. 

But  here,  lest  I  should  be  charged  with  making 
a  plea  for  mere  emotional  sentiment  in  religion  as 
against  logical  thought,  let  me  say  that,  after  all, 
the  conflict  of  which  I  have  been  speaking  is  not 
so  much  between  logic  and  sentiment  as  between 
two  different  lines  of  logic  in  our  mental  activities. 
The  logic  of  your  creed  is  one  thing:  the  syllogism 
may  be  technically  all  right,  but  the  premises  of  it 
all  wrong,  and  very  antique.  And  that  is  what  is 
the  matter  with  the  creeds  of  the  English  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  and  the  Turkish  Sultan, 
which  those  high  ecclesiastics  have  brought  for- 
ward in  condemnation  of  the  World's  Parliament  of 
Religions.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  an- 
other course  of  logic  at  work,  perhaps,  in  your 
mind  (at  work,  it  may  be,  unconsciously)  toward  a 
new  creed  from  different  premises.  Beneath  the 
fraternal  religious  sympathies  and  the  heart's  ethi- 
cal instincts  there  is  a  logic  of  thought.  They  are 
not  mere  baseless  flights  of  feeling.  What  says 
Science  of  men's  relation  to  the  Eternal  Power,  to 
which  all  the  great  religions  apply  some  name  to 
signify  Deity?     That  all  men,  of  whatever  race  or 


222       THE    WORLD  S    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS 

faith  or  color  or  nation,  live  therefrom  and  therein; 
that  all  men,  therefore,  are  its  offspring:  hence 
that  all  men  are  brothers.  There,  or  in  similar 
terms,  is  the  logic  which  is  beneath  your  fraternal 
sympathies.  There  is  the  rational  thought  sup- 
porting the  demand  of  your  conscience  to  treat 
your  fellow-men  as  equals  with  you  in  origin  and 
entitled  to  like  opportunities  with  you  for  life's 
achievements.  There  is  the  philosophy  of  your 
heart's  instincts  when  you  hasten  to  the  aid  of  a 
fellow-man  in  distress;  though,  if  your  heart's 
instincts  are  healthy  and  sound,  they  do  not  wait 
to  be  prodded  to  the  Good  Samaritan's  duty  by 
philosophy.  Yet  the  philosophy,  the  reason,  the 
logic  is  there,  to  be  called  into  service  if  need  be, 
to  convict  dull  consciences  of  neglected  duty,  and 
to  stir  laggard  hearts  to  brotherly  kindness.  Now 
I  believe  that  this  kind  of  reason,  of  logical 
thought,  of  scientific  knowledge  concerning  the 
common  origin  and  the  social  relations  of  men,  has 
been  in  late  years  working,  burrowing,  more  or 
less  clearly  or  dimly,  in  the  minds  of  great  numbers 
of  thoughtful  people  all  round  the  globe;  and  from 
this  wide-spread  thought  have  largely  come  the  fra- 
ternal impulses  which  have  produced  the  World's 
Parliament  of  Religions,  in  itself  a  most  practical 
and  vivid  illustration  of  the  thought.  And,  the 
Parliament  having  been  such  a  brilliant  success, — 
a  triumph  beyond  even  the  ardent  expectations  of 
its  promoters, —  its  influence  will  now  react  to 
strengthen  and  multiply  the  thought  which  was  its 


THE    WORLD  S    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS       223 

root,  and  to  keep  alive  those  active  sympathies  of 
practical  fraternity  which  are  the  very  life-breath 
of  the  thought.  If  the  thought  be  not  exercised  in 
the  vital  air  of  a  large  liberty,  it  will  dwindle  and 
perish. 

But  I  look  not  for  its  death,  but  rather  for  its 
growth  and  increase, —  the  green  blade  to-day,  but 
the  ear  will  follow,  and  then  the  full  corn  in  the 
ear.  This  idea  of  human  fraternity,  of  a  fraternity 
of  faiths  as  well  as  races,  is  to  be  a  potent  factor, 
I  believe,  in  writing  the  creeds  of  the  future  and 
moulding  the  work  of  all  the  faiths  and  churches. 
There  will  be  much  less  in  those  new  creeds  than 
in  the  old  ones  of  attempts  to  define  God,  but  there 
will  be  a  great  deal  more  about  the  needs  and 
duties  of  man.  The  extensive  work  of  foreign 
missions  sustained  by  Christendom  will  gradually 
develop  new  methods  consonant  with  this  idea. 
There  will  be  less  talk  of  conversion,  more  of  edu- 
cation and  elevation.  There  has  been  of  late  a 
dreadful  fear  in  the  orthodox  world  that  to  cease 
urging  on  the  heathen  that  their  ancestors  who 
never  heard  of  Christ  are  in  the  bottomless  pit  of 
helpless  perdition  is  going  to  cut  the  nerve  of  mis- 
sionary effort;  but  this  dread,  it  may  be  hoped, 
will  not  much  longer  trouble  the  minds  of  devout 
Christians.  Even  the  venerable  American  Board 
of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions,  in  its  late 
sessions  at  Worcester,  seems  to  have  felt  a  whiff 
from  the  new  religious  breeze  blowing  from  the 
Chicago  Parliament,    and  has  begun   to  adjust   its 


224      THE   WORLD  S    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS 

sails,  though  cautiously,  for  a  change  of  course. 
Who  knows  but  that  that  aged  corporation,  relic 
of  a  by-gone  time  and  theology,  rejuvenated  by  a 
hundred  new  members  and  a  new  secretary,  may 
yet  come  up  abreast  with  the  age,  and  at  the  next 
Parliament  of  Religions  gather  its  missionaries 
and  their  expected  heathen  converts,  still  declin- 
ing conversion,  into  one  happy  company  under  the 
bond  of  human  fraternity? 

But  we  must  not  expect,  outwardly,  any  imme- 
diate great  results.  The  progress  will  be  slow:  at 
first  it  may  seem  imperceptible.  Yet  it  is  coming. 
The  great  and  powerful  churches  of  Christendom 
are  not  going  to  drop  their  sectarian  sceptres  in  the 
life-time  of  many,  if  any,  of  us.  The  benevolent 
Cardinal  Gibbons,  who,  on  the  opening  day  of  the 
Parliament,  spoke  with  such  entire  sympathy  with 
the  larger  breadth  and  brotherhood  of  the  platform 
and  seemed  so  fully  at  home  upon  it,  when  subse- 
quently he  gave  his  discourse  on  the  service  of  his 
own  church  to  the  world,  fell  as  if  by  habit  and 
traditional  beliefs,  not  corrected  by  scholarly  re- 
search, into  the  extravagant  claims  that  there  was 
only  the  faintest  glimmer  of  moral  light  on  earth 
before  Christianity  was  born,  and  that  since  that 
era  Catholicism  has  led  the  world  in  advancing  the 
interests  of  civilization  and  humanity.  Thus  many 
of  the  participants  in  the  Parliament  will  drop  nat- 
urally again  into  the  routine  work  and  phrases  of 
the  sects.  Sectarianism  and  dogmatism  have  had 
such  a  vigorous   life  and  held   kingly  sway  so   long 


THE    WORLD  S    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS       22$ 

that  they  will  die  hard.  Their  sceptres  are  begin- 
ning to  waver,  but  few  of  us  shall  ever  see  them 
entirely  prostrated  in  the  dust.  Yet  we  shall  — 
nay,  do  already  —  see  them  floating  the  white  flags 
of  truce  and  amity  and  co-operation. 

And  when,  too,  we  consider  the  differences 
among  the  religions  of  the  earth,  differences  of 
ceremony  and  custom,  and  even  of  belief,  which 
are  based  on  differences  of  environment  and  the 
traditions  of  centuries,  it  is  evident  that  it  would 
be  irrational  to  expect  great  transformations  in  any 
brief  period  of  time.  Some  of  these  differences, 
it  is  likely,  will  remain  in  perpetual  existence. 
Truth  and  sincerity  do  not  require  that  all  relig- 
ions shall  be  pared  and  fitted  to  one  pattern,  more 
than  that  all  individual  persons  shall  be  fashioned 
after  one  model  of  temperament.  Such  uniformity 
is  neither  to  be  expected  nor  desired.  But,  with 
the  differences,  there  may  yet  be  unity  in  spirit 
and  aim  and  work, —  unity,  also,  in  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  belief  and  purpose.  And  this 
kind  of  unity  among  the  world's  faiths  is  already 
dawning.  This  is  the  fraternity  of  religions  which 
the  World's  Parliament  has  made  evident  as  a  pos- 
sibility, and  has  done  not  a  little  to  further  toward 
realization.  More  frequently  than  any  other  this 
idea  kept  pressing  into  utterance  in  the  addresses 
of  the  seventeen  days.  ""This  Parliament,"  said 
the  Catholic  Archbishop  of  New  Zealand,  "begins 
a  new  era  for  mankind  of  true  brotherly  love." 
The  eloquent  and   inspired   Mozoomdar,  apostle  of 


226      THE   world's    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS 

the  Brahmo-Somaj   of   India,  that   modern  theistic 
church  growing  from  the  roots  of  ancient  Brahman- 
ism,   said   that   he   represented   a  religious  society 
"whose   only   creed    is   the   harmony  of    religions, 
and  whose  only  denomination   is  the  unity  of  all 
denominations."     It  was  the  white-robed   Dharma- 
pala  who  pleaded  for   "mutual  benevolence,  toler- 
ance,  gentleness,   love,   brotherhood,   compassion," 
in  the  name  of  the  gentle   Buddha.     And   Prince 
Wolkonsky,  of  Russia,  and  of  the   Russian  Greek 
Church,  asked,    "Why  should    it    not    be    that   all 
these  religions   which    have  so    much    in  common 
should   sink  their  differences  and    find  a  common 
ground    of    action    in    the    interest   of    mankind?" 
Principal    Grant,   from   Canada,    exclaimed   that    it 
was  cause  for  profound  humiliation  and  shame  that 
Christianity,  with  the  example  and  teaching  of   its 
founder  before  it  for  nineteen  centuries,  had  only 
just  found  the  right  way  to  religious  unity  and  fra- 
ternity.    The    Brahman   monk   from    India,   Vive- 
kananda,     in    orange-colored     robes    and     turban, 
"fervently  believed  that  the  new  liberty  bell  which 
rang  that  morning  on  the  assembling  of  the  Parlia- 
ment was  to  ring  out  the  death-knell  to  all  fanati- 
cism, to  all  persecution  with  the  sword  or  the  pen, 
and  to  all   uncharitable  feeling  between   brethren, 
wending  their  way  through  different  paths  to  the 
same  goal."     Hon.  Pung  Kwang  Yu,  imperial  del- 
egate from   China,  found  the  famous  word  of  his 
great  teacher  Confucius,  "reciprocity,"  as  express- 
ing the  sum  of  human  duty,  illustrated  with  new 


THE    world's    parliament    OF    RELIGIONS       23/ 

meaning  and    glory  in  the    Parliament,   which    he 
called    a    noble    school     of    comparative    religion, 
where    "each    may  discover  what    is    excellent    in 
other  religions  than  his  own."     The  high  priest  of 
Japanese  Shintoism  believed  that  "all  the  various 
religions    of    the   world    are    based   on   the  funda- 
mental truth  of  religion,  and  that,  since   it  is  now 
impracticable  to  combine  them  into  one  religion, 
the  special  religionists  ought  at   least  to  conquer 
hostile    feelings,   to    try  to  find    out    the    common 
truth    hidden    under    different    forms    of    religious 
thought,  and  to  combine  their  strength  in  working 
for  the  common  objects  of  the  religions,"  and  espe- 
cially against  wars  and  disputes  between  nations, 
and  for  international  justice  and  peace,  and  for  a 
supreme  court  of  the  world  to  take  international 
disputes  from  the  tribunal  of  war  to  the  tribunal 
of    equity    and    reason.      Dr.   Momerie,   the    Broad 
Churchman  from  England,  said:   "To  each  religion 
have  been  attached  creeds  and  dogmas  which  the 
founders  never  anticipated.     This  conference  will 
enable    us    to    see    more    clearly    the    fundamental 
truths.      It    will    show    how    unimportant    are    the 
differences   of   creed,    and    how   important   are  the 
things  on  which  we  are  agreed."     The  venerable 
editor    of    the   New    York    Evangelist,    Dr.    Field, 
spoke  of  his   training  under  the   straitest  sect   of 
the   Puritans,  but  of  his  own  observations   in  per- 
sonal travel  among  the  different   religions   in  the 
East  as  teaching  him  that  they  are  "all  sharers  of 
the  one   Infinite   Light  and  Love."     A  young  Mo- 


228      THE    world's    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS 

hammedan  delegate  from  Constantinople,  with  an 
unpronounceable  name,  said  that  "the  young  men 
of  the  Orient,  from  the  waters  of  Japan  to  the 
.'Egean,  have  the  keenest  interest  in  the  outcome 
of  this  Parliament  as  a  basis  for  the  brotherhood 
of   man." 

And  so  the  words  of  amity  and  brotherhood 
among  the  faiths  kept  pressing  to  the  lips,  and, 
white-winged,  flew  out  into  the  free  air.  From 
Japan  and  Australasia,  from  China  and  Canada, 
from  Greek  Church  and  Quaker  preacher,  from  Eng- 
lish Churchman  and  American  Presbyterian,  from 
ancient  Armenia  and  the  newest  State  of  the  New 
World,  the  sentiments  of  brotherhood  were  heard, 
as  they  went  their  way,  to  echo  and  re-echo  around 
the  globe.  It  may  almost  be  said,  indeed,  that 
this  Parliament  of  Religions  has  given  the  creed 
of  the  coming  universal  Church,  if  such  a  Church 
shall  ever  grow  out  of  the  growing  fraternity  of 
feeling  among  the  different  faiths,  and  shall  ever 
have  occasion  to  state  its  beliefs.  Though  the 
Parliament  stated  nothing  by  resolutions,  yet  by 
general  assent  it  seemed  to  be  assumed,  and  indi- 
vidually was  again  and  again  declared,  that  the 
common  foundation  on  which  the  various  faiths 
stood  there  together  was  the  recognition  of  Su- 
preme Being,  without  any  anxiety  to  make  or  re- 
quire a  definition  of  the  supreme  existence  and 
attributes,  a  recognition  of  human  brotherhood, 
and  an  expressed  purpose  to  search  for  all  truth  and 
to  toil  unceasingly  for  human  welfare.     A  church 


THE    WORLD  S    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS       229 

need  not  have  a  v/ritten  creed,  but  it  must  have 
convictions  and  purposes  if  it  is  to  be  a  vital  power 
in  the  world.  And  for  a  statement  of  convictions 
and  purposes,  large,  free,  inclusive,  and  rational, 
I  doubt  if  any  religious  organization  can  find  any- 
thing much  broader,  stronger,  or  better  than  these 
four  fundamental  principles,  corner-stones  of  the 
platform  on  which  the  Parliament  of  the  world's 
faiths  found   its  basis  of  agreements. 

The  possible  results  to  which  I  have  here  re- 
ferred as  growing  out  of  the  Parliament  are  of  the 
nature  of  changes  to  be  effected  in  existing  relig- 
ious institutions  and  methods  through  the  slow 
processes  of  evolution  and  under  the  transforming 
touch  of  scientific  truth  and  of  a  clearer  conception 
and  intenser  feeling  of  human  brotherhood.  But 
let  me  suggest,  in  conclusion,  two  ways  in  which  a 
more  immediate  effect  may  be  produced.  First, 
why  may  not  a  Parliament  of  the  World's  Faiths 
be  continued  and  perpetuated,  its  sessions  to  be 
held  every  five  years  in  different  cities  and  coun- 
tries of  the  globe?  Such  meetings  would  serve  to 
keep  alive  and  further  to  cultivate  the  spirit  of 
fraternity  among  the  faiths,  to  which  so  strong  an 
impulse  has  now  been  given,  and  would  hasten  the 
forces  of  evolution  in  their  transforming,  educat- 
ing, and  unifying  work.  An  ecumenical  council 
every  five  years,  to  consist  of  representatives  from 
all  the  great  religions  and  churches  of  the  world, 
selected  for  their  learning,  devoutness,  character, 
and    practical   ability,    would   serve   as   a   valuable 


230      THE    WORLD  S    PARLIAMENT    OF    RELIGIONS 

international  exchange  for  religious  ideas  and 
methods,  and  might  become  a  mighty  power  in 
advancing  the  interests  of  humanity  and  establish- 
ing the  principles  of  justice  and  peace  in  the  con- 
duct of  nations  toward  each  other.  Second,  and 
finally,  why  should  not  those  who  are  finding  secta- 
rian traditions  and  methods  of  any  kind  to  be  fet- 
ters, those  who  have  already  come  out  to  this  large 
place  of  liberty,  hospitality,  and  fraternity  in  re- 
ligion, and  care  not  for  any  of  the  denominational 
names  and  conflicts  except  as  they  may  represent 
heroic  history,  those  who  stand  now  essentially  on 
the  fundamental  principles  which  the  great  historic 
faiths  of  the  world  are  shown  to  hold  in  common, — 
why  should  not  these  draw  together  and  join  their 
forces  in  churches  of  the  new  dispensation,  in 
churches  of  the  new  covenant  of  man  with  man  and 
of  the  new  thought  of  the  Eternal, —  that  new 
thought  of  the  Eternal  which  science  teaches  car- 
ries in  its  bosom  a  closer,  surer  covenant  between 
the  Eternal  Power  and  man  than  ever  the  Hebrews 
conceived  to  have  been  made  between  their  nation 
and  Jehovah?  The  name  of  this  coming  religion 
awaits.  Its  organization  awaits.  But  its  spirit, 
its  thought,  its  aspiration,  are  here.  They  are  in 
the  atmosphere  of  this  new  age.  They  call  for 
apostles  to  voice  the  new  faith,  and  to  organize  its 
service  around  the  earth.  And  of  whatever  name 
these  churches  may  be,  and  whether  they  be  new 
churches  or  old  ones  transformed  by  new  ideas, 
may  they  be  linked  together  by  this  common  bond, 


THE   world's    parliament    OF    RELIGIONS       23 1 

—  in  that,  to  use  the  quaint  New  Testament 
phrase,  they  shall  all  be  "lively  stones"  in  the 
structure  of  the  coming  universal,  catholic  Church 
of  humanity. 

"  Tread,  kingly  gospel,  through  the  nations  tread  ! 
With  all  the  noblest  virtues  in  thy  train ; 
Be  all  to  thy  blest  freedom  captive  led, 

And  Truth,  the  great  Emancipator,  reign." 


SEALED    ORDERS. 

In  time  of  war  vessels  are  often  despatched  from 
port  by  governments  under  sealed  orders.  Not 
even  do  their  commanders  know  their  ultimate 
destination  or  the  special  mission  which  they  are 
to  discharge.  They  only  know  at  the  start  the 
general  direction  which  they  are  to  take.  They 
sail  out  on  the  expanse  of  the  ocean  with  no  partic- 
ular port  in  view,  but  directed  only  to  steer  for  a 
certain  position  of  latitude  and  longitude  on  the 
open  sea;  and,  not  until  that  position  is  reached, 
are  the  sealed  orders  which  they  carry  in  their 
pockets  to  be  opened.  Then  for  the  first  time 
they  learn  whither  they  are  to  voyage  and  for  what 
task  they  have  been  sent. 

And  this  very  aptly  illustrates  the  course  of 
human  life  in  general.  We  all  begin  the  voyage 
of  life  under  sealed  orders.  Not  a  child  is  born 
whose  future  is  not  wrapped  in  mystery.  There 
in  embryo  is  the  man  or  woman;  but  what  will  be 
the  career  of  the  man  or  woman  nothing  in  the 
child  fully  foretells,  nor  can  the  parents  prophesy 
it.  What  talents  it  may  develop,  what  vocations 
will  be  chosen  or  necessitated,  what  tasks  and  re- 
sponsibilities may  be  assumed,  what  trials  and 
tragedies   or  what   successes  and  happinesses  may 


SEALED    ORDERS  233 

come  in  the  unfolding  story, —  all  these  are  a 
sealed  book  in  infancy.  We  start  in  life  on  an 
open  sea.  We  know  the  harbor  from  which  we 
depart,  and  we  linger  near  its  familiar  shores;  but 
we  know  not  the  harbor  to  which  we  sail  nor  the 
duties  which  await  us  there.  Yet  Time  is  a  mas- 
ter that  outranks  all  other  authorities,  and  bids  us 
depart.  We  can  only  have,  at  first,  general  direc- 
tions, which  are  to  be  given  in  parental  training 
and  education,  and  which  are  to  take  us,  as  it 
were,  to  a  certain  moral  and  mental  latitude  and 
longitude,  where  the  orders  which  contain  our  call- 
ing in  life  may  be  opened  to  reveal  the  mission  on 
which  we  are  sent. 

Yet  these  general  directions  are  of  supreme  im- 
portance for  the  time.  There  is  a  certain  mental 
and  moral  equipment  which  is  necessary  to  any 
kind  of  success  in  life,  whatever  the  vocation  or 
career  is  to  be.  And  this  equipment  is  what  the 
home  and  school  training  should  give  to  youth. 
As  these  general  directions  at  the  beginning  of 
life's  voyage  are  all  the  guidance  that  we  can  pos- 
sibly have,  so  it  is  a  matter  of  the  gravest  moment 
that  they  be  faithfully  followed.  The  whole  differ- 
ence between  success  and  failure  in  the  special 
calling  afterward  may  depend  on  such  obedience. 
The  commander  who  sails  from  port  under  sealed 
orders  knows  well  that  his  first  dutv  is  to  steer  for 
the  spot  where  his  orders  are  to  be  opened.  If  he 
sail  over  the  ocean  according  to  his  own  free  fancy 
before  going  to  the  spot   indicated,  or  if  he  go  in 


234  SEALED     ORDERS 

another  direction,  assuming  that  a  certain  lapse  of 
time  is  all  that  need  be  considered  before  he  opens 
his  orders,  he  may  open  them  too  late,  or  too  far 
from  the  place  of  service,  to  accomplish  the  task 
assigned  him.  If  the  English  government  de- 
spatches a  naval  vessel  down  the  Thames  to-day 
with  orders  to  be  opened  when  she  reaches  the 
middle  of  the  North  Sea,  her  officer  does  not  go 
down  to  the  Strait  of  Gibraltar  to  open  them, 
assuming  that  his  service  is  to  be  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean, nor  does  he  go  to  the  North  Sea  by  way  of 
the  Atlantic  Ocean.  He  knows  that  not  only  must 
he  open  the  orders  in  order  to  obey  them,  but  that 
space  and  time  are  important  elements  in  respect 
to  his  being  in  a  position  to  obey  them  when 
opened.  He  must  therefore  first  obey  implicitly 
the  general  directions  he  has  received.  In  like 
manner,  though  we  all  begin  the  journey  of  life 
under  sealed  orders,  unless,  when  the  time  for 
breaking  the  seals  has  arrived,  we  have  reached 
through  educational  training  a  certain  moral  and 
mental  position,  we  may  not  be  able  to  accomplish 
the  service  to  which  our  natural  faculties  call  us. 

But,  even  after  the  period  of  opening  manhood 
and  womanhood  arrives,  when  vocations  begin  to 
be  chosen,  and  the  special  allotments  in  life  begin 
to  disclose  themselves,  and  careers  to  open,  there 
is  still  a  very  large  element  of  uncertainty  min- 
gling in  human  affairs.  Man  may  be  sure  of  his 
endeavors,  but  not  always  of  the  result  of  his  en- 
deavors.     We  may  know  our  desires,  our  choices, 


SEALED     ORDERS  235 

our  aspirations,  but  not  whether  this  or  that  is  to 
be  the  fulfilment.  We  may  steer  our  course  to  a 
particular  object;  but  what  may  develop  from  that 
object,  what  may  be  hidden  behind  it,  we  are 
unable  to  say.  There  are  too  many  personal  wills 
acting  besides  our  own,  too  many  forces  in  opera- 
tion besides  human  forces,  too  many  moral  hazards 
on  all  sides  which  may  touch  our  lives,  too  much 
of  undeveloped  and  unknown  possibility  in  our  own 
natures,  for  any  person  to  be  able  to  say  at  the 
beginning  of  life's  activities  just  what  and  how 
much  he  will  have  accomplished  at  the  end.  Thus 
we  embark  even  on  the  sea  of  our  special  careers 
under  sealed  orders.  Young  persons  prepare  them- 
selves for  some  particular  work  or  profession, — 
for  law,  medicine,  art,  the  ministry,  teaching, 
trade,  manufacturing,  or  mechanical  industry;  but 
they  little  know  the  special  chances,  associations, 
experiences,  which  their  occupation  may  bring,  and 
which  may  profoundly  affect  their  characters  and 
their  happiness.  Marriage  is  entered  under  sealed 
orders.  Love  is  proverbially  blind.  It  knows  its 
present  satisfaction.  But  it  little  foresees,  and  it 
is  best  it  should  not,  either  the  possible  heights 
of  happiness  which  may  be  in  store  for  it  if  it 
be  genuine  and  remain  true,  or  the  possible  dis- 
appointments and  sorrows  which  may  come  even  to 
the  truest  hearts  and  into  the  truest  homes.  Much 
less  does  it  picture  the  depths  of  misery  which  may 
be  the  fruit  of  its  own  falsity;  for  of  that  falsity  it 
cannot  beforehand  dream  as  even  among  the  possi- 


236  SEALED    ORDERS 

bilities.  The  wife,  entering  the  sacred  ways  of 
motherhood,  goes  down  into  the  valley  of  shadows 
for  the  consummation  of  the  hope  of  her  heart  and 
the  hope  of  the  race,  but  knows  not  whether  she 
shall  emerge  on  the  side  of  time  or  the  side  of 
eternity.  Or,  safe  from  all  perils  brought,  she 
stands  amid  the  flock  of  her  growing  little  ones, 
their  mother,  their  responsible  home  educator,  but 
still  under  sealed  orders.  She  sees  an  opening 
faculty  here,  she  watches  an  unfolding  temperament 
there,  tries  to  bring  out  the  good  and  check  the 
evil,  under  a  keen  sense  of  momentous  duty,  yet 
with  an  ever-growing  consciousness  that  she  is 
working  amid  mysteries.  Could  she  only  see  what 
the  future  is  to  bring  to  these  young  minds, — 
these  buds  of  mental  and  moral  promise, —  how  the 
faculties  are  finally  to  turn,  for  what  spheres  the 
temperaments  are  to  adapt  themselves,  by  what 
means  passion  might  best  be  trained  to  self-con- 
trol, how  much  more  easily  could  her  great  obliga- 
tions be  discharged!  But  she  cannot  see.  The 
seal  of  the  future  remains  unbroken.  She  can  only 
do  the  best  she  can  on  present  knowledge,  and 
wait  in  faith  for  the  time  when  the  hidden  orders 
can  be  opened. 

This  element  of  uncertainty  clings  to  our  careers 
through  life.  We  are  never  quite  rid  of  it,  even 
though  we  reach  life's  goals  and  may  be  rich  with 
its  successes.  The  morrow  is  always  hidden. 
Some  sealed  order  that  we  little  suspect  may  be 
opened  with  the  dawn  of  another  day.     We  may  be 


SEALED    ORDERS  237 

called  suddenly  to  face  some  sorrow,  to  grapple 
with  some  calamity.  No  life  is  exempt  from  a 
change  of  fortune.  Sooner  or  later  the  harrow 
goes  over  us,  the  burden  comes  upon  our  shoulders, 
the  messenger  of  death  knocks  at  our  door,  the 
summons  comes  for  us  to  meet  quickly  some  unex- 
pected emergency.  And  the  way  in  which  these 
orders  are  met  which  summon  us  precipitately  to 
untried  duties  tests  the  secret  core  of  character  as 
cannot  the  ordinary  responsibilities  of  life.  For 
the  latter  one  may  be  on  his  guard  and  make  a  spe- 
cial preparation.  For  the  sudden  emergency  he 
must  draw  on  general  resources  of  strength,  which 
may  or  may  not  be  adequate  for  all  duties.  They 
are  the  elect  souls  who  are  in  the  best  condition  to 
meet  and  obey  the  hidden  orders  of  life,  at  what- 
ever spot  or  moment  these  may  be  opened. 

And  there  are  sealed  orders  that  not  any  emer- 
gency in  life,  but  only  death,  can  open.  As  we 
came  into  this  life  under  sealed  orders,  so  under 
sealed  orders  do  we  make  our  final  exit.  We  sail 
out  upon  the  great  sea  of  the  hereafter,  knowing 
not  what  awaits  us.  Even  though  there  be  a  firm 
faith,  an  unshaken  confidence,  that  the  future,  as 
the  present,  must  bring  life,  there  is  yet  no  sure 
revelation,  only  conjecture  how,  where,  what,  that 
life  is  to  be.  The  most  ardent  Christian  believer 
does  not  profess  to  define  the  where  or  the  how 
of  his  heaven.  Though  Spiritualism,  with  all  its 
claims,  were  to  be  admitted,  it  really  answers  satis- 
fyingly  no  questions  that  go  to  the  depths  of  things 


238  SEALED     ORDERS 

save  the  fact  of  continued  existence;  and  to  many 
minds  its  petty  details  of  professed  revelation  mar 
its  evidence  of  even  that  fact.  We  go  out  of  life, 
as  we  came  into  it,  therefore,  enshrouded  in  mys- 
tery. We  leave  life's  familiar  harbor  and  sail  out 
upon  the  vast  unknown,  with  only  one  unsealed 
order, —  to  set  sail.  All  other  directions  are 
hidden  till  the  voyage  is  begun.  We  know  not 
whether  the  country  to  which  that  journey  leads  is 
beyond  the  verge  of  this  planet  or  still  connected 
with  it,  though  invisible  to  any  mortal  eyes. 
Will  the  stars  still  be  above  us  as  pilots,  or  will 
they,  too,  be  hidden?  Question  as  we  may,  no 
answer  comes.  The  orders  are  closely  sealed.  We 
only  know  that  we  cannot  go  beyond  the  limits  of 
an  infinite  universe,  that  we  cannot  be  dropped  off 
into  empty  space,  that,  even  "if  our  bark  sinks, 
'tis  to  a  deeper  sea." 

Let  us  look  at  some  illustrations  of  our  theme  of 
a  public  nature.  When,  four  hundred  years  ago, 
Columbus  set  sail  westward  across  the  Atlantic, 
he,  too,  was  under  sealed  orders.  He  thought  he 
was  his  own  master,  thought  he  knew  his  destina- 
tion,—  the  East  Indies, —  and  that  he  had  only  to 
follow  the  chart  in  his  own  brain  to  obtain  his  ex- 
pected results.  But  his  ship  carried  other  com- 
mands than  any  he  knew,  carried  a  higher  master 
than  himself;  and,  when  these  sealed  orders,  held 
in  the  hand  of  historic  fate,  were  opened,  it  was 
not  a  new  way  to  Asia  that  he  was  sent  to  dis- 
cover,   but    the     New     World    of    America.      Our 


SEALED    ORDERS  239 

Puritan  forefathers, —  how  little  knew  they  of  the 
results  of  their  voyage,  or  even  of  the  destiny  in 
store  for  themselves,  when  they  put  to  sea  from 
Plymouth,  England,  for  the  New  World!  The  one 
order  open  to  them  was  to  find  a  place  where  they 
would  be  free  to  follow  their  religious  convictions 
according  to  their  own  consciences.  But  in  the 
sealed  orders  which  they  brought  from  a  Higher 
Power  were  the  schools,  the  churches,  the  civiliza- 
tion, the  character,  the  popular  government  of  New 
England  and  a  cordon  of  free  States  across  the 
American  continent,  wherein  soul  liberty  should  be 
guaranteed  to  all.  Our  fathers  of  the  Revolution, 
again,  entered  that  contest  with  sealed  orders  in 
their  pockets.  They  thought  to  obtain  their  rights 
as  colonists  under  Great  Britain.  To  resist  unjust 
taxation,  to  escape  the  imposition  of  a  foreign  mili- 
tary police,  to  have  the  rights  of  Englishmen, — 
this  was  their  aim.  Separation  from  the  mother 
country  was  not  at  first  dreamed  of.  Even  when 
Washington  drew  his  sword  in  Cambridge  as  com- 
mander-in-chief of  all  the  colonial  armies,  inde- 
pendence of  Great  Britain  was  a  sealed  book,  of 
whose  secret  scarcely  a  whisper  was  heard.  The 
same  lesson  is  enforced  in  the  remarkable  career  of 
that  silent  man  of  destiny.  General  Grant.  In  the 
modest  beginning  of  his  service  in  the  war  of  the 
Rebellion  who  could  have  read  his  great  ending? 
Though  he  was  a  graduate  of  West  Point,  and  had 
somewhat  distinguished  himself  as  a  young  officer 
in  the   Mexican   War,  he  was   so  modest,  so   little 


240  SEALED     ORDERS 

known,  that  his  letter  to  the  Secretary  of  War 
offering  his  services  in  any  capacity  was  not 
deemed  important  enough  to  notice;  and,  on  going 
to  Cincinnati  with  the  thought  that  he  might  find 
a  place  on  General  McClellan's  staff,  he  went 
home  again  without  even  gaining  admission  to  that 
officer's  presence.  He  went  back  to  the  work  of 
drilling  the  volunteer  companies  of  Illinois,  which 
he  had  taken  up  from  pure  patriotism  immediately 
on  the  issue  of  President  Lincoln's  first  call  for 
troops,  serving  for  several  weeks  without  even  a 
commission  from  the  governor  of  his  State.  But 
all  the  time  the  sealed  orders  were  waiting  for  him. 
The  worth  of  the  man  for  the  work  needed  was  dis- 
closed whenever  there  came  any  kind  of  test.  He 
was  always  equal  to  the  task  assigned,  always  ready 
for  the  emergency.  And  so  the  sealed  orders,  that 
contained  his  destiny  and  the  nation's  destiny 
enwrapped  together,  were  opened  one  after  another, 
as  he  went  on  from  success  to  success,  from  com- 
mand to  command,  until  the  final  seal  was  broken, 
and  the  Rebellion  went  down  before  his  legions  at 
Appomattox.  Or  take  a  career  the  very  antipodes 
of  that  of  military  success,  —  a  career  of  command- 
ing moral  success.  Garrison  little  dreamed  of  the 
contest  on  which  he  was  entering  when  he  began, 
a  mere  boy  in  years,  to  think  and  to  write  on  the 
iniquities  of  holding  human  beings  in  bondage. 
The  Eternal  Power  that  makes  for  righteousness 
was  testing  the  moral  mettle  of  the  man.  It  rang 
true,  and   little  by  little   the  sealed  orders  of  his 


SEALED    ORDERS  24I 

career  were  opened.  Each  duty,  faithfully  and 
courageously  discharged,  led  to  the  opening  of  a 
larger  duty.  In  the  first  number  of  the  Liberator, 
in  words  that  rang  through  the  land  like  the  shot 
of  the  embattled  farmers  at  Concord  and  Lexing- 
ton, he  took  command  of  the  moral  forces  of  the 
nation  in  the  gigantic  conflict  against  the  domes- 
tic, commercial,  and  national  power  of  the  institu- 
tion of  slavery.  He  little  thought  that  he  was  to 
live  to  see  that  power  demolished.  The  drama 
proceeded,  one  act  opening  after  another;  and  the 
moral  commander  was  alert  and  prepared  for  every 
opportunity,  equipped  for  every  emergency  in  the 
long  and  bitter  conflict.  He  counselled  not  with 
prudence,  with  policy,  with  wealth,  nor  with  fame, 
—  not  even  with  the  expediency  of  saving  the 
union  as  the  prior  duty.  His  sole  query  was. 
What  does  justice  command  to-day?  That  order 
opened  and  obeyed,  the  next  followed  in  due  sea- 
son, and  the  next,  until  the  final  seal  in  that  con- 
test, too,  was  broken,  and  there  came  the  decree  of 
emancipation,  and  the  slave  rose  up  a  citizen  and  a 
voter. 

All  the  great  moral  and  religious  teachers  of  the 
world  confirm  the  same  lesson,  —  Buddha,  Confu- 
cius, Socrates,  Jesus.  None  of  them  foresaw  at 
the  beginning  of  their  careers  what  they  were  to 
pass  through,  what  weight  of  duties  they  were  to 
meet.  They  began  their  great  missions  under 
sealed  orders.  They  went  down  to  their  graves 
without    seeing   all    that    they    had    done.     They 


242  SEALED    ORDERS 

wrought  in  faith,  and  were  ready  to  seal  their 
testimony  with  their  blood,  yet  were  not  permitted 
to  see  the  full  fruit  of  their  works.  Within  their 
deeds  lay  greater  deeds  concealed.  When  Jesus 
went  to  be  baptized  of  John,  he  knew  not  that  he 
carried  in  his  bosom  an  order  to  found  a  new  relig- 
ion, which  was  to  abrogate  the  dispensation  of 
John's  baptism.  Confucius  began  his  pre-eminent 
career  of  public  service  in  China  when  a  youth  of 
twenty  years  in  being  appointed  to  the  humble, 
though  responsible,  position  of  keeper  of  the  pub- 
lic stores  of  grain.  As  keeper  of  the  stores  he 
said,  "My  calculations  must  all  be  right;  that  is 
all  I  have  to  care  about."  And  making  his  calcu- 
lations right,  putting  his  virtue  into  this  simple 
office,  the  next  year  witnessed  his  promotion  to  the 
charge  of  the  public  fields  and  lands.  Another 
order  was  unsealed.  And  then  he  said:  "The  land 
must  be  well  tilled.  The  oxen  and  sheep  must  be 
fat  and  strong  and  superior.  That  is  all  I  have  to 
care  about."  And  thus  he  went  on,  putting  his 
whole  moral  faithfulness  into  whatsoever  work  he 
was  called  to  do,  until,  passing  from  one  office  to 
another,  he  rose  to  the  position  of  prime  minister, 
and  became  the  trusted  adviser  of  kings,  the  moral 
censor  of  his  country,  the  collector  and  transmitter 
of  its  ancient  wisdom,  and  the  wise  educator  and 
example  for  thousands  of  generations  to  come. 

And  such  examples  also  teach  that,  though  much 
of  the  most  important  work  of  life,  on  account  of 
the    element    of    uncertainty  running    through    all 


SEALED    ORDERS  24 


J 


human  affairs,  must  be  done  as  it  were  under 
sealed  orders,  yet  this  need  not  and  should  not  lead 
to  any  doctrine  of  fatalism.  These  persons  were 
able  to  do  the  duties  assigned  them  when  the  time 
for  the  revelation  of  those  duties  came,  because 
of  their  docility  and  their  faithfulness  in  all  the 
minor  duties  that  went  before.  They  had  the 
ready  heart,  the  equipped  mind,  the  prepared 
spirit.  By  obedience  to  each  day's  command,  as  it 
had  come  to  them,  however  small  and  however  in- 
complete it  might  seem,  they  had  placed  them- 
selves in  the  moral  latitude  and  longitude  where 
the  larger  order,  when  it  was  unsealed,  could  be 
promptly  and  effectively  obeyed.  Their  own  moral 
faithfulness  to  whatsoever  light  had  been  given  had 
indeed  led  the  way  to  the  larger  and  clearer  revela- 
tion, and  made  it  possible. 

Nor,  again,  is  any  important  order  that  concerns 
present  duty  hidden.  The  sealed  order  is  for  the 
future.  The  bridge  is  not  to  be  crossed  until  it  is 
reached.  But  it  will  not  be  reached  by  waiting  for 
it  by  the  roadside.  The  duty  for  to-day  is  always 
an  open  one.  It  may  be  a  humble  one,  the  lot 
where  it  is  cast  may  be  narrow;  yet  it  is  none  the 
less  needful,  and  faithfulness  to  it  none  the  less 
important.  It  is  a  necessary  and  artistic  part  of 
the  great  drama  of  life,  without  which  the  larger 
and  succeeding  duties  will  miss  their  needed  prepa- 
ration and  support. 

Further,  there  are  certain  moral  qualities  that 
are  the  essential  equipment  for  the  right  perform- 


244 


SEALED     ORDERS 


ance  of  all  life's  genuine  commands,  whenever  and 
wherever  the  seals  shall  be  broken.  These  are  the 
single  eye,  the  pure  heart,  the  incorruptible  con- 
science, the  humane  sympathy,  the  unquailing 
courage  and  strength  that  can  hold  the  helm  to  the 
line  of  reason  and  right,  let  storm  and  tempest 
rage,  or  sunshine  allure.  Whoever  is  thus  piloted 
journeys  as  calmly  and  safely  in  night  and  storm 
as  when  he  voyages  by  light  and  day  under  clear 
skies.  These  qualities  make  all  duties  perform- 
able,  however  suddenly  revealed,  all  trials  passable, 
all  sorrows  bearable.  These  furnish  the  constant 
woof  for  all  substantial  character  as  it  is  woven 
day  by  day,  year  by  year,  in  the  loom  of  time. 

We  are  all  spinners  at  Time's  wheel.  We  must 
all  contribute  our  part,  great  or  small,  good  or  ill, 
to  the  great  world-life.  Often  we  may  not  be  able 
to  see  how  our  work  is  to  fit  in  with  the  completed 
web  of  the  whole,  or  to  be  of  any  avail.  Often, 
indeed,  we  are  blind  spinners  (as  Helen  Hunt 
Jackson  pictures),  working  by  feeling  and  not  by 
sight.  Yet  feeling  may  become  as  sure  a  guidance 
as  sight;  and,  if  we  are  but  faithful  to  the  ap- 
pointed task  of  the  hour,  we  may  do  our  work  in 
faith  and  confidence  and  joyous  hope.  All  good 
work  finds  its  fitting  place.  It  makes  its  own  sta- 
bility, its  own  qualities  of  endurance.     Perhaps 

"  Like  a  blind  spinner  in  tlie  sun, 
I  tread  my  days, 
Yet  know  that  all  the  threads  will  run 
Appointed  ways; 


SEALED    ORDERS  245 

I  know  each  day  will  bring  its  task, 
And,  being  blind,  no  more  I  ask. 


'<  Sometimes  the  threads  so  rough  and  fast 

And  tangled  fly, 
I  know  wild  storms  are  sweeping  past, 

And  fear  that  I 
Shall  fall ;  but  dare  not  try  to  find 
A  safer  place,  since  I  am  blind. 

"  I  know  not  why,  but  I  am  sure 
That  tint  and  place. 
In  some  great  fabric  to  endure 

Past  time  and  race, 
My  threads  will  have." 

Such  qualities  as  these  keep  the  identity  of  char- 
acter amid  all  time's  changes,  and  through  all 
duties  and  circumstances.  One  who  is  permeated 
with  the  spirit  and  power  of  such  moral  principles 
can  never  be  at  a  loss  how  to  act  in  any  strait  of 
life,  can  never  be  lost  —  can  never  be  otherwise 
than  at  home  —  in  any  moral  realm  of  the  universe; 
and,  when  the  final  seal  of  all  earthly  orders  is 
broken,  and  the  summons  is  sounded  to  depart  on 
that  journey  whence  no  traveller  returns,  such  a 
soul  cannot  go  to  a  strange  country,  but  to  a  land 
with  which  it  is  already  familiar.  Moral  realms 
are  not  separated  by  space  nor  time  nor  outward 
condition.  Whoever  lives  a  life  of  righteousness 
on  whatever  planet,  in  however  lowly  sphere, 
dwells   now   in   heaven  and   inhabiteth   eternity. 


WHEAT    AND    TARES. 

"  Let  both  grow  together  till  the  harvest." —  Matt.  xiii.  30. 

Jesus'  parable  of  the  tares,  which  were  to  be 
allowed  to  grow  with  the  wheat  until  the  time  of 
harvest,  suggests  one  aspect  of  the  moral  condition 
of  human  society  that  may  profitably  engage  our 
attention  this  morning.  Note  that  I  take  only  the 
point  of  the  growing  together,  and  not  the  conclu- 
sion of  the  parable.  Within  the  questions  of  the 
existence  of  evil  and  of  the  continuance  of  evil  is 
involved  the  subsidiary  question,  Why  should  evil 
be  allowed  in  such  close  association  with  good 
as  to  imperil  the  existence  of  the  latter?  And 
this  question  touches  human  life  at  so  many  prac- 
tical points  that  it  probably  perplexes  and  worries 
more  people  than  does  the  more  metaphysical  ques- 
tion. Why  should  evil  exist  at  all?  Evil  and  good 
are  so  intricately  blended  —  in  the  relations  of 
social  life,  in  the  home,  in  marriage,  in  problems 
of  education,  in  affairs  of  politics,  in  questions  of 
recreation  and  amusement,  in  matters  of  trade  and 
business,  aye,  in  the  individual  heart  —  that  some- 
where to  almost  every  person  the  query  must  daily 
arise,  How  can  I  here,  at  this  point  of  experience, 
secure  the  good  and  escape  the  evil  that  lies  close 


WHEAT    AND    TARES  24/ 

beside  it?  In  the  midst  of  the  commonest  duties 
required  of  us  there  lurk  temptations  that  might 
work  our  ruin.  Accompanying  our  richest  bless- 
ings come  seeds  of  evil  that  may  fructify  in 
curses.  Within  our  best  hopes  are  possibilities 
that  may  overshadow  them  with  despair.  While 
we  lift  our  heads  into  a  clear  atmosphere  of  joy,  a 
deep  chasm  of  disappointment  and  sorrow  may  be 
ready  to  yawn  at  our  feet.  We  thrust  forth  our 
hands  with  courage  and  enthusiasm  to  the  culture 
of  certain  virtues ;  we  draw  them  back  pricked  with 
the  thorns  of  vices  that  are  growing  on  the  same 
field.  Thus,  everywhere  we  find  the  wheat  and  the 
tares  together,  the  good  and  the  evil  side  by  side, 
in  the  same  soil,  growing,  of  course,  from  differ- 
ent yet  from  intermingled  roots. 

Now,  however  much  we  might  be  disposed  to 
complain  of  this  state  of  things  and  to  impeach  the 
wisdom  of  the  Power  that  has  so  arranged  it,  the 
complaint  and  the  impeachment  are  alike  useless. 
Wiser  is  it  to  accept  the  facts  of  existence  as 
we  find  them,  observe  carefully  the  natural  moral 
suggestions  which  lie  in  them,  and  then  bring 
out  of  the  facts  the  best  result  possible.  It  is 
very  evident,  from  the  experience  of  mankind, 
that  good  and  evil  are  in  such  close  neighborhood 
for  a  purpose,  —  at  least,  that  the  mightiest  re- 
sults pertaining  to  the  world's  progress  have 
depended  upon  this  proximity.  On  the  mutual 
relation  between  good  and  evil  on  account  of  their 
necessitated  existence  side  by  side  turns  the  drama 


248  WHEAT    AND    TARES 

of  the  life  of  mankind.  This  is  the  fulcrum  of 
all  historical  movement, —  the  point  whence  we 
may  trace  the  development  and  education  of  the 
human  race. 

Various  attempts  have  been  made  from  time  to 
time,  under  the  auspices  of  different  religions  and 
nationalities,  to  make  an  unnatural  separation  of 
good  and  evil, —  to  withdraw,  for  instance,  good 
and  pure  persons  into  a  society  by  themselves,  to 
shut  them  off  from  contact  with  the  motley  world, 
in  the  hope  that  they  in  their  protected  enclosure 
would  not  only  be  safer  themselves  from  the 
world's  evil,  but  might  send  out  into  the  world  an 
influence  for  redeeming  it.  But  no  such  experi- 
ments appear  to  have  been  successful  in  attaining 
either  object.  Such  protected  enclosures  have  not, 
on  the  one  hand,  kept  out  the  power  of  evil.  Cor- 
ruption has  somehow  found  entrance  into  these 
consecrated  places.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
devout  persons  thus  set  apart  from  the  world,  if 
they  have  preserved  their  own  integrity,  have  too 
often  become  too  ignorant  of  the  world's  condition 
and  needs  and  ways  to  be  efficient  workers  against 
its  vices.  So,  in  spite  of  all  such  attempts  arbi- 
trarily to  separate  them,  the  wheat  and  the  tares 
have  continued  to  grow  together  side  by  side. 

We  may  say,  indeed,  reasoning  from  the  history 
of  the  past,  that  the  world  has  been  built  on  the 
plan  of  self-improvement.  Whatever  Supreme 
Power  may  have  initiated  and  vitalized  the  process 
of   advancement,  that   process   has   been  carried   on 


WHEAT   AND    TARES  249 

through  the  action  of  finite  agencies.  Within  the 
finite  world  itself  have  been  stored  the  forces  for 
overcoming  and  casting  out  its  own  evils.  Though 
the  agencies  are  necessarily  imperfect,  they  have 
been  gifted  with  the  power  to  advance  the  world 
toward  perfection.  The  good  elements,  by  strug- 
gling against  the  evil,  have  increased  their  own 
strength,  and  have  thus  gradually  brought  the  evil 
under  their  dominion.  This  is  the  law  of  the 
world's  development  and  progress.  It  has  been  in 
a  certain  sense  the  law  of  the  material  world,  and 
it  is  especially  the  law  of  the  human  world.  Man 
has  not  been  lifted  out  of  evil  toward  good  by  any 
power  extraneous  to  him  and  acting  independently 
of  his  own  exertions.  The  necessary  regenerating 
power  has  been  placed  in  man  himself.  He  is 
himself  the  field  of  the  struggle  between  the  oppos- 
ing forces  on  which  his  fate  depends.  His  own 
education,  enlightenment,  moral  advancement,  are 
the  result  of  the  struggle.  He  secures  the  good, 
creates  it,  in  fact,  by  conquest  of  the  evil.  To  put 
the  good  and  the  evil,  therefore,  at  once  by  an 
unnatural  division  into  separate  fields  would  be,  if 
such  a  division  were  possible,  a  reversal  of  the 
plan  of  the  universe. 

First,  the  theory  that  in  morals  the  wheat  and 
the  tares  ought  to  be  separated  loses  sight  of  the 
primary  fact  of  all, —  the  moral  improvement  and 
salvation  of  the  evil.  It  might  be  a  very  comfort- 
able thing,  if  good  people  could  be  permitted  to 
dwell  together  in  a  country  by  themselves,  where 


250  WHEAT    AND    TARES 

they  could  have  exclusive  management  of  affairs. 
But  what  of  the  bad  people  who  would  thus  be  left 
together  in  a  country  by  themselves?  Are  they 
to  be  left  to  go  to  perdition?  left  alone  to  their 
own  folly  and  wickedness  and  wretchedness?  left 
to  prey  upon  and  torment  and  outrage  and  still 
further  to  debase  and  dehumanize  each  other? 
Have  the  good  no  responsibility,  no  duty,  no  pity 
toward  the  bad?  Such  a  plan  would  be  as  inhuman 
as  it  is  unnatural.  We  can  hardly  suppose  it  pos- 
sible that  such  a  community  of  utterly  bad  people 
would  be  capable  of  regenerating  themselves. 
And,  even  on  the  theories  of  supernatural  regen- 
eration, it  has  always  been  allowed  that  the  super- 
natural power  must  have  natural  agencies  for  its 
communication.  Hence  the  alleged  need  of  the 
preacher,  the  missionary,  the  exhorter,  the  tract, 
the  revival  meeting,  the  hymn  and  prayer,  and  all 
the  machinery  and  power  of  the  visible  Church  for 
the  sake  of  converting  and  saving  people.  The 
source  of  the  regenerating  power  might  be  super- 
natural ;  but  it  is  admitted  that  it  made  use  of  these 
natural  instrumentalities  to  accomplish  its  objects, 
—  that  is,  made  use  of  persons  already  redeemed, 
already  supposed  to  be  good,  to  redeem  and  convert 
the  bad.  But  the  hypothesis  that  the  bad  are  sepa- 
rated in  a  community  by  themselves  and  the  good 
by  themselves  forbids  any  such  intercommunication 
even  for  the  sake  of  saving  the  bad.  The  gulf 
prophesied  in  that  terrific  parable  of  Abraham  and 
Lazarus  is  already  fixed,  so  that  none  can  pass  from 


WHEAT    AND    TARES  2$  I 

one  side  to  the  other.  The  wicked  are  left  to  their 
doom.  And  hence  the  question  comes,  by  way  of 
corollary,  whether  that  could  be  a  genuine  human 
goodness  which  could  thus,  for  the  sake  of  peace 
and  quiet  and  its  own  unhindered  development, 
separate  itself  from  all  contact  with  wicked  people 
in  some  exclusive  community?  Are  not  sympathy, 
compassion,  and  helpful  charity  toward  the  wicked 
necessary  elements  of  goodness?  Can  he  be  a 
good  man  himself  who  can  let  his  brother  fall  into 
a  pit  at  his  side  without  an  effort  to  save  him? 
Love  to  one's  brother  man,  shown  in  active  en- 
deavors for  his  welfare,  is  certainly  the  highest 
test  of  human  goodness;  and  how  can  any  manifest 
this  quality  who  strive  to  get  away  from  their  un- 
fortunate brothers  when  they  most  need  their  help? 
The  very  hypothesis  of  a  separation  of  the  good 
from  the  evil  in  the  affairs  of  the  world  is  shown 
to  be  logically  untenable  by  the  argument,  rediictio 
ad  absiirdimi ;  since,  if  any  persons  should  have  a 
disposition  to  depart  into  some  secluded  retreat  to 
care  for  their  own  interests  and  to  leave  the  wicked 
to  their  fate,  they  would,  by  that  very  fact,  prove 
themselves  to  be  wanting  in  that  benevolence 
which  is  the  most  essential  quality  of  goodness, 
and  hence  would  themselves  have  to  be  excluded 
from  that  select  abode  as  not  good  enough.  They 
would  exhibit  a  moral  selfishness,  an  ambition  to 
secure  the  highest  seats  in  spiritual  places,  an 
appetite  for  the  first  chance  to  the  good  things  of 
personal    enjoyment,    which   would   certainly   soon 


252  WHEAT    AND    TARES 

breed  the  dire  results  of  evil  in  their  new  home  if 
they  were  to  be  admitted  to  it. 

And  this  suggests  the  further  question  whether 
any  such  division  of  the  good  and  the  bad  as  indi- 
viduals, even  if  it  were  natural  and  desirable,  could 
be  possible.  Who  are  to  go  with  the  bad?  Or, 
harder  question,  Who  will  go  with  the  good? 
Will  you?  Will  I?  Judged  by  our  aspirations, 
our  prayers,  our  endeavors  perhaps,  we  would. 
But  shall  we  be  so  self-righteous  as  to  assume  that 
our  conduct  would  take  us  that  way?  Who  is  to 
draw  the  line,  and  where  is  it  to  be  drawn?  Do 
you  say,  Let  it  be  drawn  by  the  public  judgment  of 
the  courts  of  law,  by  the  line  of  prison  walls? 
But  how  ineffective  a  separation  would  thereby  be 
accomplished !  You  know  that  there  are  vastly  more 
of  wicked  and  morally  dangerous  people  outside  of 
prisons  than  in  them.  Would  you  draw  the  line  at 
the  openly  degraded  and  socially  outcast  classes  of 
population?  But,  again,  you  know  that  there  are 
many  persons  who  are  morally  degraded,  and  who, 
except  for  the  accident  of  birth  or  wealth  or  sex, 
might  be  socially  outcast,  who  yet  move  in  repu- 
table circles  of  society.  And  you  know  that,  even 
in  the  classes  called  degraded  and  outcast,  there 
are  not  a  few  individuals  who  have  honest  and  true 
aspirations,  and  who,  in  spite  of  their  surround- 
ings, maintain  a  virtuous  character.  Will  you 
draw  the  line,  then,  between  actual  virtue  and 
actual  vice  wherever  found,  letting  the  line  run 
wherever    it    will,     separating    families,     passing 


WHEAT    AND    TARES  253 

through  communities  and  neighborhoods  without 
any  reference  to  the  lines  of  social  distinction, 
drawing  the  bad  out  of  good  circles  and  the  good 
out  of  bad,  and  thus  dividing  people  according  to 
their  real  moral  worth,  as  it  might  be  viewed  by  an 
Omniscient  Eye?  But  what  power  less  than  Om- 
niscience could  survey  that  line?  Nay,  would  not 
even  Omniscience  have  to  run  such  a  line  through 
individual  characters  as  well  as  between  individ- 
uals? Where  is  the  person  who,  at  least  to  his 
own  eye,  is  wholly  good?  Even  Jesus  refused  to 
be  called  good  when  the  young  man  addressed  him 
as  "Good  Master."  And  what  man  is  there  whom 
any  one  but  himself  would  dare  to  pronounce 
wholly  bad?  The  good  and  the  bad,  the  virtue 
and  the  vice,  intermingle  in  individual  hearts  and 
characters.  The  struggle  goes  on  there,  in  the 
secret  places  of  personal  temptation  and  action,  as 
well  as  in  the  broad  fields  of  the  world  outside; 
and  unless  we  are  to  have  a  mutilation  of  personal 
character,  a  division  of  our  very  personality,  there 
can  be  no  arbitrary  separation  of  the  good  and  evil 
elements  in  our  earthly  life. 

I  said  above  that  the  theory  that  in  morals  the 
wheat  and  the  tares  ought  to  be  separated  loses 
sight  of  the  primary  fact  of  all  in  the  social  educa- 
tion of  the  human  race;  namely,  the  moral  im- 
provement and  salvation  of  the  evil.  But  the 
questions  just  started,  as  well  as  the  common  expe- 
rience of  mankind,  show  us  that  the  theory  loses 
sight    hardly  less    of    the    welfare  of    the   good, — 


254  WHEAT    AND    TARES 

misses,  indeed,  some  of  the  principal  means  by 
which  the  good  qualities  of  character  are  nurtured 
and  maintained.  There  can  be  no  question  that 
many  of  the  most  substantial  virtues  of  mankind 
are  acquired  by  struggle  with  and  conquest  over 
evil.  The  finite  moral  consciousness  itself  appears 
to  have  been  wrought  out  under  the  stern  disci- 
pline of  experience,  to  which  the  primitive  human 
and  ante-human  races  were  subjected  in  the  strug- 
gle for  existence.  And  the  education  of  this  moral 
faculty,  from  its  first  rude  manifestations  to  its 
present  height  of  culture,  has  been  by  no  smooth 
road,  by  no  course  of  easy  lessons,  but  by  the 
severest  conflict  and  battle  with  hindering  condi- 
tions,—  in  short,  by  constant  struggle  with  oppos- 
ing evils.  Whatever  theories  and  fancies  we  may 
like  to  entertain  of  a  possibly  better  world  than 
our  own,  in  which  men  should  have  been  gifted 
from  the  outset  with  only  virtuous  desires  and 
capacities,  that  certainly  is  not  the  plan  of  the 
world  we  live  in.  Virtue,  according  to  the  plan  of 
our  world,  is  a  possession  which  man  is  to  achieve 
by  his  career,  not  an  endowment  with  which  he 
sets  out.  There  may  be  certain  graces  of  charac- 
ter, certain  excellences  of  spiritual  temperament 
and  moral  disposition,  with  which,  especially  at 
this  stage  of  hereditary  moral  accumulation,  indi- 
vidual human  beings  may  be  born.  But  virtue  is 
a  quality  of  character  that  is  not  born,  that  does 
not  appear  in  cradles,  but  has  to  be  earned  by  the 
solid  moral   labor  of  life;  and  whoever  starts  with 


WHEAT    AND    TARES  255 

hereditary  advantages  at  birth  is  only  put  under 
obligation  to  earn  more,  to  reach  a  higher  standard 
of  virtue,  than  he  who  comes  into  existence 
weighted  with  an  inheritance  of  moral  evil.  But, 
however  we  begin,  it  is  the  plan  of  the  world  we 
inhabit  that  a  large  measure  of  the  discipline  by 
which  our  moral  education  is  secured  comes 
through  our  necessary  contact  with  evil.  This  is 
the  school  where  the  sinews  of  our  virtue  grow, 
and  moral  character  is  strengthened  and  estab- 
lished. So  long  as  the  moral  ideal  keeps  its  su- 
premacy and  enlightened  conscience  holds  sway 
within,  evil,  whether  it  present  itself  in  the  form 
of  moral  transgression  or  of  outward  calamity,  is 
only  a  challenge  to  more  heroic  self-command  and 
to  braver  deeds  of  mental  or  moral  conquest.  In 
that  conflict  between  the  moral  law  that  presses 
upon  the  conscience  and  the  pressing,  tempting 
thing  which  that  law  condemns,  virtue  is  ham- 
mered and  shaped  into  personal  character.  Out  of 
this  struggle  in  some  one  of  its  forms,  with  inward 
temptations  or  with  outward  evil  conditions  and 
wrongs,  have  appeared  the  heroes  whom  we  honor, 
the  saints  whom  we  reverence  and  love,  the  philan- 
thropists and  prophets  of  all  ages  who  still  teach 
us  to-day  by  their  word  and  example.  Upon  man 
himself,  indeed,  has  been  placed  the  dignity  and 
responsibility  of  detecting  and  overcoming  the 
evil  that  besets  his  race,  and  thereby  creating 
moral  character  and  establishing  society  on  a 
moral   basis. 


256  WHEAT    AND    TARES 

Many  souls,  it  is  true,  in  their  earthly  career 
appear  to  have  succumbed  in  the  struggle  to  the 
strong  power  of  evil.  With  many  more  it  has 
apparently  been  a  drawn  battle.  But,  with  the 
world  at  large,  and  considering  the  whole  history 
of  the  race,  though  the  expression  may  seem  a 
paradox,  it  is  true  that  mankind  has  grown  and 
thriven  in  virtue  on  the  moral  evils  it  has  had  to 
encounter.  Think  of  the  true  and  holy  men,  the 
noble  women,  whose  lives  are  held  in  grateful 
remembrance  for  what  they  becam.e  and  did,  be- 
cause the  presence  of  human  woe  about  them  drew 
them  out  of  selfishness  into  careers  of  disinterested 
beneficence!  This  fact  of  the  transformation  of 
moral  evil  into  moral  benefit,  through  some  reme- 
dial spiritual  process  of  counter-irritancy,  may 
not,  metaphysically  speaking,  give  us  a  satisfactory 
reason  for  the  existence  of  the  evil.  But,  practi- 
cally, it  is  certainly  cause  for  congratulation,  if 
evil  must  exist,  that  man  has  learned  to  turn  it  to 
so  good  account, —  that,  by  the  very  effort  to  over- 
come its  resistance,  he  has  increased  his  vigor  and  » 
capacity  for  virtue ;  and  it  is  a  strong  argument  for 
a  divine  element  in  his  own  nature,  as  also  for  a 
divine  plan  and  purpose  in  the  universe,  that  he 
has  so  learned. 

And  in  human  experience  we  have  abundant 
illustration  of  the  wisdom  of  the  arrangement  by 
which  good  and  evil  are  allowed  to  exist  together 
instead  of  being  arbitrarily  separated,  both  in  re- 
spect   to   the  effect    upon  the  good  and   the  effect 


WHEAT    AND    TARES  257 

upon  the  evil.  We  naturally  shrink  from  sending 
out  the  young  from  the  seclusion  of  well-guarded 
and  virtuous  homes  into  places  where  they  must 
come  into  association  with  those  who  have  not 
had  their  moral  protection  and  who  have  probably 
learned  not  a  little  of  the  roughness  and  vicious- 
ness  of  the  world.  Yet  experience  does  not  show 
that  those  whose  entire  educational  period  has  been 
kept  carefully  guarded  under  pure  home  influences 
from  contact  with  the  possible  evil  of  the  world 
make  the  strongest  or  most  virtuous  characters. 
They  are  quite  likely  to  break  down,  when  the 
emergencies  of  life  throw  them  upon  their  own 
resources  and  the  great  temptations  come  in  their 
careers.  What  is  needed  is  that  the  young  should 
take  out  from  their  virtuous  homes  such  a  loyalty 
to  moral  principle  that  they  can  effectively  resist 
the  evil  influences  that  may  come  from  any  ordi- 
nary contact  with  rough  or  vicious  associates.  The 
home  that  can  send  out  with  its  young  this  stanch 
fidelity  to  virtue,  this  inward  loyalty  to  truth,  to 
honesty,  to  purity,  to  manliness,  not  only  saves 
them  "unspotted"  from  the  evil  of  the  world,  but 
through  them  wields  a  gracious,  healthful  influence 
that  can  but  do  something  to  redeem  the  manners 
and  the  morals  of  those  less  fortunately  born  and 
educated. 

So  in  the  single  home.  It  is  certainly  fortu- 
nate, when  we  consider  the  whole  problem  of 
human  advancement,  that  the  virtues  do  not  all 
appear    in    one    household,   the    vices    in    another. 


258  WHEAT    AND    TARES 

The  Strong  and  the  weak,  the  virtuously  disposed 
and  the  viciously  inclined,  are  born  into  the  same 
family,  and  are  to  be  reared  together.  If  only  a 
wisely  directing  hand  hold  the  helm,  this  may  be 
no  detriment  to  any,  but  a  great  good  to  all.  The 
different  individualities,  the  opposing  and  even 
clashing  temperaments,  may  help  to  educate  each 
other.  The  strong  may  give  of  their  strength  to 
the  weak,  and  yet  lose  none  in  the  giving.  The 
virtuous  disposition  may  check  the  vicious  into 
bounds  of  self-control,  and  yet  train  itself  to 
needed  patience  and  charity   in  the  process. 

And,  even  in  the  marriage  relation,  it  is,  on  the 
whole,  fortunate  for  human  society  that  the  good 
are  not  always  mated  together  and  the  bad  together, 
but  that  here,  too,  the  wheat  and  the  tares,  if  tares 
there  must  be,  are  united ;  fortunate  that  love  to  a 
certain  extent  is  morally  blind,  so  that  even  saint 
and  sinner  may  be  drawn  together  in  the  marriage 
bond.  There  are,  indeed,  certain  grossnesses  of 
sin  (more  on  the  part  of  men  than  women)  which 
should  forever  debar  from  the  sacred  relation  of 
marriage,  because  not  only  the  rights  of  the  living, 
but  the  rights  of  the  unborn,  are  involved;  and 
there  are  certain  gross  excesses  of  evil  which,  on 
either  side,  and  equally  on  both  sides,  may  be 
deemed  an  adequate  ground  for  breaking  the  rela- 
tion when  once  formed.  But,  these  exceptions 
aside,  Nature  knows  her  aim ;  and  it  is  a  beneficent 
one,  when  she  makes  love  overlook  faults,  and  see 
only  merit  and  beauty,  and  so  draws  together  char- 


WHEAT    AND    TARES  259 

acters  of  very  different  moral  quality  and  tempera- 
ment. And  what  is  the  aim?  Not,  surely,  to 
degrade  the  higher  character;  for  that,  though  pos- 
sible, is  never  necessary.  No:  it  is  the  lifting  up 
of  the  lower,  and  the  broader  education  of  both, 
and,  in  the  course  of  coming  generations,  the  neu- 
tralization and  elimination  of  the  bad  moral  qual- 
ity in  the  human  stock.  And  husband  and  wife 
are  faithless  to  these  high  educational  obligations 
of  the  marriage  relation  when  at  any  time,  love 
being  off  guard,  cold  reason  lifts  the  veil  of  illusion 
and  bids  either  see  in  the  other  faults  incompatible 
with  love.  Far  better,  excepting  the  extreme  cases 
I  have  noted,  is  the  sacred  relation  observed  and 
honored  by  those  who  learn  to  bear  and  forbear, 
and  forgive  much  evil,  and  who  finally  triumph 
over  it  and  win  the  crown  of  a  love  purified  as  if 
by  fire.  And  such  instances  are  not  infrequent, — 
instances  where,  though  the  grievance  has  been 
great,  yet  by  persistent  faithfulness  to  the  marriage 
vow,  remembering  that  each  took  the  other  in  the 
fresh  morn  of  love  for  better  or  worse,  the  saint- 
liness  of  the  one  has  at  last  conquered  the  sin  of 
the  other,  and  both  have  been  blessed  by  the 
fidelity  that  won  the  victory.  So  again  in  society 
at  large.  It  is  wisely  ordered  by  the  very  condi- 
tions of  the  existence  of  human  society  that  the 
different  moral  classes  and  grades  of  mankind  can- 
not live  wholly  apart  from  and  independent  of  each 
other.  They  must  come  into  contact,  they  must 
affect  each  other  for  weal  or  woe,  whether  they  will 


26o  WHEAT   AND   TARES 

or  not.  And  here  the  responsibility  rests  chiefly 
upon  the  moral  and  cultivated  classes.  They  are 
the  leaders.  They  cannot  live  to  themselves  alone. 
They  can  only  save  and  strengthen  their  own 
virtue  by  helping  the  ignorant  and  the  vicious. 
Society  is,  indeed,  imperilled  from  these  degraded 
sources.  There  is  moral  poison  in  the  contact, 
there  is  taint  in  the  very  atmosphere.  But  upon 
mental  and  moral  culture  is  devolved  the  obliga- 
tion and  privilege  to  disinfect  the  atmosphere,  to 
extract  the  poison.  In  thus  redeeming  others  from 
the  sloughs  of  moral  degradation,  the  virtuous  and 
educated  members  of  society  redeem  themselves 
from  the  dangers  of  a  refined  selfishness.  There 
are  many  social  questions  pressing  upon  our  time 
with  alarming  urgenc)^  They  are  not  to  be 
escaped.  To  try  to  get  away  from  them  into  some 
quiet  corner  where  we  may  be  permitted  to  pursue 
our  own  vocations  and  follow  our  own  tastes  in 
peace  and  prosperity  is  cowardly.  It  is  also  in 
vain.  The  peace  and  prosperity  cannot  be  secured; 
at  best  they  will  be  but  temporary,  so  long  as  vice 
and  ignorance  are  left  rampant  to  their  own  devices 
in  any  grade  of  society.  These  foes  must  be  met 
by  the  culture  and  virtue  of  society,  wisely  and  hu- 
manely, but  firmly  and  persistently, —  met  at  the 
ballot  box,  by  the  press,  in  legislation,  in  busi- 
ness, in  the  home,  the  school,  the  pulpit,  the 
street,  met  everywhere  where  knowledge  can  be 
imparted  and  virtue  get  a  foothold  and  philan- 
thropy obtain  a  place  for  her   lever,   met  not  de- 


WHEAT    AND    TARES  26l 

spairingly,  not  half-heartedly,  but  courageously, 
heroically,  with  fulness  of  faith  and  of  hope,  else 
will  the  kingdom  of  heaven  not  gain  much  ascen- 
dency on  the  earth. 

I  have  spoken  only  of  the  application  of  the 
theme  to  our  present  earthly  life;  and  this  cer- 
tainly is  for  us  the  most  important  application. 
Yet,  though  we  may  not  dogmatize  on  a  question 
where  we  have  no  real  knowledge,  I  know  not  why 
it  is  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  same 
principles  will  extend  into  any  life  that  may  be 
in  store  for  humanity  in  the  future.  If  we  are  to 
preserve  our  identity  in  that  coming  life  for  which 
we  hope,  it  would  seem  that  the  life  must  consist 
of  essentially  the  same  elements  and  go  on  upon 
essentially  the  same  basis  as  our  present  life. 
The  things  that  make  goodness  here  must  make  it 
there.  The  law  of  moral  fidelity  must  be  as  bind- 
ing there  as  here.  Compassion,  fraternal  sym- 
pathy, loving-kindness,  helpful  charity,  must  be 
the  same  benignant  active  qualities  in  the  heavenly 
as  in  the  earthly  life,  only  lifted  up  to  purer  in- 
tensity and  freer  scope.  So  I  cannot  conceive  that 
in  that  other  world  evil  is  to  be  removed  beyond 
the  reach  of  goodness.  I  believe  that  the  two 
must  exist  together  there  as  here,  so  long  as  one 
needs  the  help  which  the  other  has  to  give.  Why 
should  death  fix  at  once  an  impassable  gulf  be- 
tween the  good  and  the  evil,  so  that  mercy  cannot 
pass  from  the  one  to  the  other?  That  good  and 
evil   characters  are  different   in  nature,  and  crave 


262  WHEAT    AND    TARES 

different  satisfactions,  and  must  needs  enjoy  dif- 
ferent pleasures,  is  true;  but  they  need  not  for 
that  reason  go  to  different  and  forever  divided 
worlds  then  more  than  now.  I  believe  rather  that 
the  change  of  relation  between  the  good  and  the 
evil  which  death  is  most  likely  to  effect  is  the  lift- 
ing of  them  both  into  more  favorable  conditions 
for  bringing  the  evil  under  the  redeeming  influ- 
ence of  the  good;  that,  so  far  from  being  implac- 
ably separated  from  the  evil,  the  good  will  have 
a  better  chance  then  than  now  to  throw  around 
them  the  healing  sympathies  of  their  love;  and 
that  this  larger,  better  opportunity  for  such  saving 
service  will  be  one  of  the  joys  of  heaven.  Why, 
we  believe,  do  we  not,  that  this  better  opportunity 
and  its  attendant  joy  will  surely  come  with  the 
improvement  of  society  even  here  on  earth;  and 
I  can  conceive  nothing  less  than  this  as  making  the 
felicity  of  heaven.  Surely,  for  a  being  with  a  human 
heart  there  can  be  no  felicity  in  any  heaven  below 
which  opens  an  unapproachable  and  irredeemable 
gulf  of  perdition.  There  as  here  the  good  and  the 
evil  must  grow  together  till  the  time  of  harvest. 

The  harvest  may  be  long  postponed;  but  even 
man,  in  his  brief  years  on  earth,  by  his  intelli- 
gent skill  can  make  wonderful  transformations  in 
the  plants  and  flowers  which  he  cultivates,  as  well 
as  in  personal  character.  When  the  final  harvest 
of  all  comes,  may  not  even  the  tares  be  found  fer- 
tilized from  the  pollen  of  the  wheat,  and  the  Infi- 
nite Reaper  have  only  pure  grain  for  his  garner? 


COURAGE    OF    CONVICTIONS. 

The  persons  who  have  moved  the  world  are  those 
who  have  had  the  courage  of  their  convictions ; 
that  is,  those  who  have  not  only  clearly,  thor- 
oughly, and  firmly  believed  in  certain  principles 
and  truths,  but  have  also  had  the  disposition,  will, 
and  vigor  to  act  upon  their  beliefs  and  to  endeavor 
to  get  them  adopted  and  acted  upon  by  other 
people.  There  is  a  class  of  persons  who,  in  quiet 
retirement,  like  to  work  at  problems  of  thought  or 
in  scientific  research,  but  whose  interest  in  their 
work  seems  to  be  chiefly  a  theoretical  one.  They 
manifest  little  care  whether  the  truths  they  dis- 
cover are  made  known  to  the  world  and  adopted  by 
other  people  or  not.  They  might  stand  by  their 
convictions,  if  summoned  to  do  so;  but  they  feel 
no  call  to  enter  upon  a  voluntary  struggle  to  propa- 
gate and  maintain  them.  They  enjoy  the  work  of 
discovery;  but  the  work  of  propagandism  is  not  to 
their  taste,  and  they  decline  it.  These  persons 
have  a  use  in  the  world;  for  the  thought-problems 
they  solve  or  the  discoveries  they  make  are  taken 
up  by  other  people,  and  are  thus  thrown  into  the 
current  of  the  world's  activities  and  made  available 
for  human  benefit.  But  they  do  not  themselves 
aim  at  that  benefit  nor  seek  actively  to  promote  it. 


264  COURAGE    OF    CONVICTIONS 

They  do  not  stand  with  their  hands  upon  the  levers 
of  the  world's  movements.  Their  brain  employ- 
ment is  for  private  luxury  rather  than  for  public 
profit. 

But,  if  we  look  along  the  line  of  the  world's 
progress,  we  see  that  the  great  leaders  in  that  prog- 
ress have  been  men  of  action  as  well  as  thought, — 
not,  by  any  means,  the  men  who  have  been  most 
boisterous  in  action,  not,  certainly,  the  men  —  and 
there  are  many  such  —  who  have  rushed  noisily 
into  action  without  the  thought,  not  the  men  who 
have  the  activity  and  the  dash  and  the  courage,  but 
no  convictions,  but  the  men  who  have  both  the 
convictions  and  the  courage,  convictions  of  truth 
worthy  to  be  contended  for,  and  the  courage  to 
stand  up  against  all  obstacles,  to  contend  for  them. 

And  these  qualities  are  needed  in  about  equal 
measure  to  make  strong  characters.  If  either  be 
greatly  deficient,  character  is  necessarily  weak  and 
ineffective.  If  both  be  possessed  in  very  large 
measure,  supporting  each  other,  then  appear  the 
great  leaders  of  human  progress.  And,  where  both 
are  possessed  in  exceptionally  large  measure  with 
specially  favorable  adjustment  to  each  other,  there 
are  found  the  few  exceptional  leaders  of  humanity, 
—  the  persons  of  such  rare  and  conspicuous  mark 
on  the  field  of  history  that  not  more  than  a  score  of 
them  can  be  counted  in  all  the  annals  of  mankind. 
In  this  small  class,  "at  the  top," — where,  indeed, 
in  every  classification  of  mankind  "there  is  always 
plenty  of    room," — are  the  founders  of    religions, 


COURAGE    OF    CONVICTIONS  265 

the  organizers  of  states,  the  thinkers  and  discov- 
erers who,  by  the  rare  profundity  and  courage  of 
their  mental  action,  have  revolutionized  entire  sys- 
tems of  thought  and  practice  among  their  fellow- 
men. 

As  a  noted  example  of  this  class  we  readily  re- 
call Luther,  who,  though  not  the  most  eminent 
scholar  and  thinker,  nor  even  the  noblest  character 
of  the  Protestant  Reformation,  yet  became  the 
leader  of  the  Reformation  because  convictions  and 
the  courage  to  stand  by  them  were  welded  in  him 
to  the  white  heat  of  the  most  vigorous  action. 
Savonarola  was  a  man  of  the  same  calibre,  and  in 
some  respects  of  even  finer  mould,  who  a  half-cen- 
tury earlier  preached  a  dawning  Protestantism  in 
Italy,  in  the  face  of  king  and  pope,  demanding  a 
purer  faith  and  cleaner  morals,  and  going  finally  to 
the  stake  to  expiate  the  crime  of  his  courage  and 
the  audacity  of  his  faith.  And  in  the  very  begin- 
ning of  Christianity  there  was  Paul,  a  Hebrew 
Luther  and  the  real  founder  of  ecclesiastical 
Christianity, —  he,  too,  was  a  man  who  had  both 
strong  convictions  and  a  corresponding  strength  of 
courage  to  stand  by  them.  The  result  was  seen  in 
the  primitive  systematizing  and  propagandism  of 
Christianity.  But  before  him,  though  of  very  dif- 
ferent temperament,  was  Jesus,  who  unconsciously 
laid  the  basis  of  Christianity,  but  built  no  struct- 
ure thereon.  Yet  he  was  a  genuine  leader  in  that 
he  changed  the  thoughts  and  dispositions  of  the 
people  who  saw  and  heard  him.      Less  theological 


266  COURAGE    OF    CONVICTIONS 

than  cither  Paul  or  Luther,  he  towered  above  them 
both  in  catholicity  of  spirit  and  in  purity  of  moral 
discernment.  Savonarola,  perhaps,  of  all  the  great 
disciples  of  Christ,  came  nearest  to  him  in  charac- 
ter. But  Jesus,  notwithstanding  his  catholicity  of 
temper  and  gentleness  of  spirit,  stood  not  a  whit 
behind  the  most  vigorous  leaders  that  have  ever 
appeared  in  Christendom,  in  respect  to  depth  of 
convictions  and  the  courage  to  maintain  them. 
The  heart  side  of  his  character,  the  tenderness  he 
manifested  toward  the  penitent  erring,  and  his  ever 
active  sympathy  for  the  poor  and  the  distressed 
have  sometimes  blinded  the  eyes  of  his  disciples  to 
the  masculine  robustness  of  his  nature.  A  dispo- 
sition has  even  been  manifest  to  soften  down  and 
explain  away  some  of  the  more  vigorous  of  his  de- 
nunciations of  the  formal  sanctity  and  hypocritical 
pretences  of  his  time  as  inconsistent  with  the  idea 
of  his  gentleness  and  forbearance.  But  I  would 
not  take  one  iota  from  this  side  of  the  story  of  his 
life,  even  though  the  expression  of  it  may  possibly 
sometimes  shock  our  ideal  of  a  perfect  Christ. 
Possibly  our  ideal  of  the  perfect  Christ  lacks  this 
very  element  of  vigor  which  comes  into  the  story 
of  the  real  Jesus.  Certainly,  it  was  not  merely  the 
heart  side  of  Jesus,  gentle  and  sympathetic  as  that 
was,  which  made  him  the  dominant  character  he 
was.  Behind  his  affections  and  sympathies  he  had 
deep  convictions  and  the  courage  to  abide  by  them. 
He  drew  men  and  women  to  him,  and  helped  and 
healed  many  of  their  troubles  by  his  mere  tender- 


COURAGE    OF    CONVICTIONS  2.6"] 

ness.  But  this  was  not  the  part  of  his  nature  that 
5-pecially  caused  his  career  to  make  a  new  epoch  in 
the  world's  history,  and  has  drawn  the  admiration 
of  after  ages.  His  mission  was  to  bear  witness  to 
the  truth,  and  for  this  cause  came  he  into  the 
world.  He  lived  in  sympathetic  and  helpful  heart- 
relations  with  the  men  and  women  right  around 
him;  but  he  lived,  also,  from  and  for  deep  convic- 
tions of  mind  and  soul.  For  these  he  wrought  and 
suffered  and  died.  Persecution  could  not  deter 
him  from  proclaiming  them,  danger  could  not 
daunt  him.  Though  church  and  state  marshalled 
all  their  powers  against  him,  his  courage  did  not 
blanch  nor  falter,  until  he  sealed  his  testimony 
with  his  blood. 

Others  of  the  world's  great  teachers,  in  Chris- 
tendom and  out  of  Christendom,  have  had  in  pre- 
eminent degree  this  same  trait  of  character.  It 
was  the  courage  of  his  convictions  that  gave  Con- 
fucius power  to  remodel  both  the  religion  and  the 
government  of  large  portions  of  China.  It  was  the 
courage  of  his  convictions  whereby  Buddha  and  his 
followers,  five  hundred  years  before  Christ,  swept 
India  with  a  religious  reform  which,  in  its  relation 
to  the  more  ancient  Brahmanism,  was  not  unlike 
the  Protestant  Reformation  in  Christendom.  It 
was  the  courage  of  his  convictions  which  made 
Socrates  the  father  of  a  new  standard  of  ethics  as 
well  as  of  a  new  philosophy  in  Greece.  Though  he 
wrote  not  a  word,  but,  like  Jesus,  only  talked,  yet 
he  so  impressed  his  words  on  the  minds  of  his  dis- 


268  COURAGE    OF    CONVICTIONS 

ciples  and  the  people  of  his  city  that  the  world  has 
never  lost  them,  and  we  have  probably  to-day  al- 
most as  true  a  picture  of  his  thoughts  and  charac- 
ter as  had  his  contemporaries  in  Athens.  His 
thoughts,  too,  were  printed  on  the  heart  of  the 
world  in  his  martyr  blood;  and  that  is  a  printer's 
ink  that  never  fades. 

So,  too,  in  the  world  of  science,  of  discovery 
and  invention,  of  statesmanship,  of  social  and  po- 
litical reform,  and  on  the  lower  field  of  general- 
ship, the  prime  leaders  are  always  those  who  not 
only  have  strong  convictions,  but  a  strong  power  to 
impress  them  upon  others  and  to  carry  them  into 
effect.  The  scientific  man  who,  like  Copernicus 
or  Darwin,  should  find  himself  in  possession  of 
discoveries  that  must  meet  with  obloquy  and  perse- 
cution before  the  world  will  accept  them,  would  be 
no  true  devotee  of  science,  and  could  be  no  leader 
in  his  vocation,  unless  he  is  ready  to  face  the  fierc- 
est opposition  without  quailing  and  still  hold  by 
his  opinions.  Science  in  its  progress  has  always 
had  to  join  swords  with  theology  and  the  Church; 
and  hence  its  apostles  have  always  had  need  of  the 
martyr's  courage,  as  not  infrequently  they  have 
met  the  martyr's  fate.  What  a  power  was  Garrison 
in  the  anti-slavery  struggle,  peace-man  and  non- 
resistant  though  he  was,  because  he  possessed  not 
only  those  clear  moral  convictions  that  were  a 
candle  to  his  own  conscience,  but  had  also  the 
nerve  to  hold  up  those  convictions  as  a  burning 
candle  before  the  guilty  consciences  of  Southern 


COURAGE    OF    CONVICTIONS  269 

slaveholders  and  their  Northern  abettors,  though 
he  had  to  face  mobs  and  death  to  do  it  I  Some- 
times the  courage  is  even  a  more  important  ele- 
ment than  the  convictions;  that  is,  it  is  not 
necessary  that  the  convictions  should  be  very  orig- 
inal or  striking  in  order  to  insure  a  great  and 
beneficent  career,  though  it  is  necessary  that  they 
should  be  clear  and  strong.  We  cannot  claim  for 
Washington  that  he  had  a  profoundly  original 
mind.  There  were  intellects  in  the  Revolutionary 
era  superior  to  his  in  the  origination  of  ideas,  as 
Adams,  Jefferson,  Franklin,  Hamilton.  Yet,  take 
him  all  in  all,  in  generalship  and  in  statesmanship, 
Washington  was  the  master  character  and  leader  of 
the  American  colonies  in  their  perilous  passage 
from  colonial  to  national  existence.  Not  brilliant 
in  the  power  of  intellectual  conception,  yet  the 
intellectual  principles  from  which  he  acted  were 
clearly  grasped  by  his  mind  and  tenaciously  held; 
but,  what  was  more  important,  he  had  that  kind  of 
courage  in  carrying  his  ideas  into  effect  which  does 
not  consist  so  much  in  a  dashing  assault  as  in  judi- 
cious persistence.  There  were  two  generals  in  our 
late  war  who  illustrated  our  theme  in  opposite 
ways.  General  Sherman  was  brilliant  and  inven- 
tive in  plan;  but,  if  anything,  he  was  still  more 
daring  in  execution.  The  danger  with  him  was 
that  his  courage  might  hurry  him  into  action  with- 
out the  support  of  a  well-conceived  and  well-organ- 
ized plan  behind  it.  General  McClellan,  on  the 
other  hand,  gave  his  whole  mind  to  the  problem  of 


270  COURAGE    OF    CONVICTIONS 

planning  a  campaign  and  organizing  his  army  for 
it.  His  plans  may  have  been  excellent;  but,  when 
the  hour  for  action  came,  he  seemed  to  lose  faith 
in  their  success,  and  delayed  for  some  minor 
amendment  of  them  until  the  golden  moment 
passed  when  success  was  possible.  He  lacked  the 
courage  even  of  his  military  convictions.  And  his 
own  memoirs  show  that  he  had  a  personal  ambition 
and  conceit  that  fatally  sapped  his  moral  strength. 

And  in  the  smaller  and  obscurer  fields  of  ser- 
vice, where  each  of  us  may  be  stationed  in  the 
work  and  struggle  of  life,  both  of  these  qualities 
are  also  needed  for  the  successful  discharge  of  the 
task  assigned  to  us.  A  life  without  convictions, 
without  principles,  is  like  a  vessel  sailing  aim- 
lessly over  the  seas  without  a  cargo.  A  character 
with  convictions,  but  without  the  courage  to  main- 
tain them,  is  like  a  vessel  lying  at  wharf  after  its 
cargo  has  been  put  on  board,  but  having  no  wind 
nor  steam  nor  other  power  to  take  her  across  the 
seas  to  her  intended  port. 

Of  course,  convictions  and  principles  may  be  bad 
as  well  as  good;  and  the  man  who  has  the  courage 
of  thoroughly  bad  convictions  is  the  scourge  of  his 
race.  The  cruel  despots  in  church  and  state, 
whose  personal  malignant  ambition  or  hot  zeal  in 
the  service  of  a  false  piety  has  left  a  trail  of  blood 
across  many  a  page  of  human  history,  have  been 
men  who  had,  unhappily,  the  courage  of  bad  con- 
victions. Better,  indeed,  would  it  have  been  for 
the  world    if    they  had  had  no  convictions   at   all 


COURAGE   OF    CONVICTIONS  2/1 

than  to  have  been  dominated  by  such  false  ones. 
The  first  duty,  therefore,  is  to  store  the  mind  with 
honest  and  true  beliefs,  to  seek  just  and  beneficent 
principles,  to  strive  to  attain  correct  views  of  one's 
relation  to  the  world  in  which  he  lives.  This 
question  of  what  our  convictions  or  principles  may 
be  is  not  a  matter  merely  of  chance  or  fate  or  in- 
heritance: it  is  a  matter  of  mental  and  moral  cult- 
ure. Convictions  may  be  reformed  by  broadening 
the  mental  vision,  by  enlightening  the  conscience, 
by  increasing  the  acquisitions  of  knowledge,  by 
clarifying  the  moral  perceptions  through  more 
active  exercise  of  them,  and  by  cultivating  the 
benevolent  dispositions  of  the  heart.  What  are 
called  convictions,  in  the  sense  in  which  the  word 
is  here  used,  are  not  intellectual  perceptions  alone, 
but  they  are  the  product  of  intellectual  perceptions 
and  moral  sentiment,  or  they  are  intellectual  prin- 
ciples suffused  with  moral  feeling.  They  are 
warmer  and  more  glowing  than  are  the  pure  ab- 
stractions of  mental  truth.  One  may  accept  with- 
out question  the  demonstrated  propositions  of 
geometry,  but  it  is  not  these  mathematical  beliefs 
that  are  ordinarily  called  convictions.  But,  when 
one  gets  a  perception  of  the  relations  of  justice  and 
veracity  and  brotherhood  in  which  man  should  live 
with  his  fellow-man,  or  when  one  perceives  by 
what  subtle  and  inviolable  laws  man  is  related  to 
the  life  of  the  invisible  Power  in  nature  that  has 
fathered  and  mothered  him,  then  he  is  in  the  region 
of  convictions;  and  the  beliefs  that  he  will   attain 


272  COURAGE    OF    CONVICTIONS 

will  depend  on  the  breadth  and  accuracy  of  his  in- 
tellectual view,  and  will  also  be  vitalized  by  moral 
emotion.  The  conditions,  then,  for  attaining  con- 
victions that  are  true  and  good  may  be  cultivated. 
Mankind  are  under  obligations  to  have  good  con- 
victions instead  of  bad  or  indifferent  ones.  Civil- 
ized man  may  train  himself  and  may  train  those 
whose  instruction  is  confided  to  him  to  look  at  their 
relation  to  other  men  and  to  the  world  in  which 
they  live  with  broad  and  enlightened  vision  and 
with  moral  susceptibility.  The  result  of  such  edu- 
cational training  will,  in  all  probability,  be  mental 
and  moral  convictions  that  are  altogether  worthy  of 
being  carried  into  action. 

And  then  comes  the  need  of  the  courage.  And 
at  this  point  many  otherwise  quite  good  people  — 
at  least,  well-intentioned  people  —  practically  fail, 
and  lead  in  consequence  weak  and  inefficient  lives. 
They  have  good  principles  enough,  but  they  are 
weak  in  execution.  Their  convictions  are  all 
right,  yet  they  fail  to  impress  them  upon  others. 
They  see  clearly  enough,  for  instance,  the  course 
which  truth  and  right  demand,  yet  perhaps  it  is  an 
unpopular  course:  the  fashionable  or  the  majority 
do  not  go  that  way.  And  so  they  are  tempted 
either  to  keep  their  opinions  to  themselves  and 
remain  inactive  or  else  to  go  with  the  multitude. 
In  either  case  they  lack  the  courage  of  their  con- 
victions. Or,  perhaps,  it  is  some  enterprise  of 
philanthropy  which  they  are  convinced  would  be  qf 
great  benefit  to  the  community.     They  feel  moved 


COURAGE    OF    CONVICTIONS  2/3 

to  enter  upon  it.  They  have  the  time  and  the 
means  to  devote  to  it.  But  they  see,  on  closer 
acquaintance,  that  there  are  many  obstacles  in  the 
way,  that  hard  labor  will  be  required,  that  mis- 
understandings will  have  to  be  met  and  popular 
odium  encountered ;  and  so  they  withdraw,  in  cow- 
ardly timidity,  from  the  field,  retreat  to  the  enjoy- 
ment of  cultured  retirement  instead  of  pressing  on 
to  the  higher  joy  of  well-won  repose  after  a  con- 
quered wrong.  They  lack  the  courage  of  their 
convictions.  Or,  perhaps,  it  is  some  false  and 
injurious  social  standard  of  behavior  that  troubles 
them.  Mentally  and  morally  they  inwardly  protest 
against  it.  But  social  conventionalities  and  tradi- 
tions  are  strong:  to  combat  them  causes  fret  and 
annoyance,  and  is  liable  to  put  one  outside  of  the 
charmed  circle.  And  so  they  yield  their  better 
judgment  to  the  force  of  custom.  Again,  they 
lack  the  courage  of  their  convictions.  Or,  per- 
haps,—  a  more  critical  peril, —  reason  and  con- 
science pronounce  clearly  for  a  certain  moral 
decision  in  personal  conduct:  a  certain  vice  is 
to  be  abjured,  a  certain  well-understood  ruinous 
temptation  is  to  be  resisted.  The  habits  and  pop- 
ular opinion  among  companions  are  on  the  side  of 
the  vice.  The  fear  of  ridicule,  of  a  laugh,  of 
being  thought  Puritanic  and  prudish,  helps  the 
temptation.  The  hour  for  action  comes,  ana  there 
is  no  strength  to  say  No,  though  reason,  con- 
science, heart,  all  plead  for  it.  The  victim  lacks 
the  courage  of  his  convictions. 


274  COURAGE    OF    CONVICTIONS 

No  great  work  can  be  done  unless  the  worker 
throws  himself  into  it  with  the  full  ardor  of  enthu- 
siastic belief.  But  marvellous  achievements  have 
been  wrought  even  by  one  man  or  one  woman, 
single-handed,  who  was  equipped  with  the  enthusi- 
astic courage  of  a  good  conviction  and  with  the 
needed  practical  energy  to  support  it.  Such 
workers  are  wanted  to-day.  There  are  neglected 
and  ostracized  truths  that  need  them.  Educational 
reform  is  waiting  for  them.  The  manifold  prob- 
lem of  the  curse  of  intemperance  cries  out  for  their 
solution.  Wronged  and  struggling  women  plead 
for  their  aid.  Oppressed  and  discontented  labor 
calls  for  their  leadership.  The  tenement-houses  of 
the  poor,  reeking  in  filth  and  misery  and  vice,  pray 
for  their  knowledge  and  humanity.  Corruption  in 
politics  demands  their  most  invulnerable  con- 
science in  the  herculean  task  of  cleansing  its 
stables.  The  field  is  vast,  the  laborers  are  few. 
Yet  there  are  large  numbers  of  men  and  women, 
sitting  in  their  parlors  and  in  their  libraries,  with 
excellent  ideas  and  sentiments  concerning  the  work 
that  needs  to  be  done.  But  they  do  not  do  it ;  and 
they  will  probably  go  down  to  their  graves  dissat- 
isfied with  their  success  in  life,  because  they  have 
lacked  the  courage  and  energy  to  carry  their  best 
convictions  into  execution. 

The  opportunities  are  waiting,  not  only  for  the 
clear  sight,  but  the  ready  hand.  Nay,  the  faith 
that  is  alive  to  humanity's  wants  makes  its  oppor- 
tunities.    It  does  not  wait  to  find  them.      It  does 


COURAGE    OF    CONVICTIONS  275 

not  stay  at  home  expecting  them  to  come  to  it. 
Human  beings  not  only  help  the  world,  but  perfect 
themselves,  by  throwing  themselves  with  generous 
enthusiasm  into  the  world's  work.  "Blessed," 
says  Carlyle,  "is  he  who  has  found  his  work:  let 
him  ask  no  other  blessedness." 


HEROISMS    IN    DAILY    LIFE. 

My  subject  this  morning  is  the  heroic  element 
in  daily  life.  It  is  a  common  impression  that 
heroism  must  have  a  rare  and  conspicuous  field  for 
its  display.  The  heroes,  it  is  thought,  belonged 
to  the  old  days  of  knight-errantry;  or  they  are 
gallant  soldiers,  or  valiant  philanthropists,  or,  at 
least,  doers  of  some  work  by  which  their  names  are 
emblazoned  around  the  world.  The  General  Sheri- 
dans,  the  John  Browns,  the  John  Howards,  the 
Garrisons,  the  Captain  John  Smiths,  the  Joan  of 
Arcs,  the  Grace  Darlings,  the  Ida  Lewises, —  it  is 
characters  like  these  that  are  generally  thought  of 
as  representing  the  quality  of  heroism.  And 
these,  of  course,  do  represent  the  quality.  But 
they  are  by  no  means  its  sole  representatives. 
There  may  be  men  and  women  every  whit  as  heroic 
in  the  quiet  walks  of  daily  duty,  whose  names  will 
never  be  known  to  history  or  even  beyond  the 
boundaries  of  their  own  neighborhood.  For  what 
is  the  essence  of  heroism?  It  is  valorous  action, 
against  great  odds,  for  a  noble  object.  And  this  is 
a  definition  that  does  not  cover  public  and  conspic- 
uous deeds  alone.  The  deed  may  be  in  secret,  it 
may  be  curtained  in  domestic  privacy,  it  may  per- 
chance be  known  only  to  one's  own  breast;  and  yet 


HEROISMS    IN    DAILY    LIFE  2/7 

it  may  have  all  the  elements  of  true  heroism.  It 
is  the  silent  heroisms  of  virtue,  never  blazoned 
abroad,  known  perhaps  only  to  the  home  or  the 
neighbor  or  the  secret  heart,  which  keep  the  moral 
health  of  mankind. 

AccordinsT  to  our  definition  there  are  three  con- 
ditions  essential  to  heroic  action.  First,  the 
action  must  be  valorous,  it  must  manifest  courage. 
You  cannot  imagine  a  craven  spirit  as  heroic. 
Valor  is  the  root-meaning  of  the  word  from  which 
our  word  "heroism"  is  derived.  At  first  it  meant 
physical  valor.  But,  as  human  life  has  developed, 
valor  has  come  to  have  a  mental  and  moral,  as  well 
as  physical,  significance.  It  means  the  courage  of 
one's  convictions,  the  bravery  that  can  face  and  do 
the  right  without  fear  or  favor.  And  there  may  be 
mental  and  moral  heroism  that  will  stand  up  fear- 
lessly to  do  the  true  and  the  right,  though  there 
may  have  been  little  training  in  acts  of  physical 
valor.  Second,  heroic  action  is  conditioned  by 
great  odds  opposed  to  it.  It  implies  hardship,  an- 
tagonism, a  struggle,  and  battle.  It  means  that 
there  are  strong  forces  to  be  wrestled  with  and  con- 
quered. They  may  be  physical  forces,  or  they  may 
be  mental  and  moral  forces.  For  Grace  Darling 
and  Ida  Lewis  it  was  the  mighty  forces  of  the 
winds  and  the  waves  that  were  to  be  met,  as  they 
launched  their  boats  to  go  out  to  the  rescue  of 
shipwrecked  fellow-beings.  For  John  Howard  it 
was  depraved  moral  forces,  so  hopeless  of  cure  to 
the    thoughtless  majority,    that   he   set   himself   to 


2/8  HEROISMS    IN    DAILY    LIFE 

overcome.  For  Garrison  it  was  the  combined 
powers  of  state,  church,  and  society  that  he,  a 
physical  non-resistant,  challenged  to  combat  on  a 
practical  question  of  justice.  The  resistance  to  be 
overcome  may  thus  differ  in  kind;  but  all  heroic 
deeds  imply  a  hostile  power  to  be  fought  down,  and 
a  hostile  force,  too,  that  appears  to  have  the  advan- 
tage greatly  on  its  side.  You  would  not  call  any 
action  heroic  which  was  done  by  spontaneous 
desire,  with  no  opposition.  Such  an  action  may 
be  good,  moral;  but  it  is  not  of  the  kind  called 
heroic.  It  is  a  necessary  condition  of  the  heroic 
act  that  it  should  encounter  great  obstacles. 
Third,  heroic  action  must  have  a  noble  object. 
Here,  perhaps,  some  persons  might  at  first  thought 
demur.  They  might  object  that  very  valorous 
deeds  have  been  displayed  on  the  wrong  side  of 
great  public  causes,  or  even  for  bad  personal  ends. 
But  this  objection  loses  sight  of  the  distinction  be- 
tween mere  physical  valor  and  the  valor  that  has 
a  moral  impulsion, —  a  distinction  that  has  been 
growing  clearer  to  mankind  as  they  have  advanced 
in  civilization,  until  now  it  is  precisely  this  moral 
quality  attached  to  the  valorous  deed  that  entitles 
it  to  the  praise  of  being  heroic.  Of  course,  a  bad 
cause,  as  history  finally  gives  judgment,  may  be 
espoused  by  good  men,  acting  from  conscientious 
devotion  to  principle.  And  such  men  may  mani- 
fest heroism  because  acting  for  what  to  them  are 
good  objects.  And  so,  too,  in  the  strifes  of  a  bad 
cause  there  may  be  many  incidental   occasions  for 


HEROISMS    IN    DAILY    LIFE  279 

genuinely  noble  deeds  of  the  heroic  cast.  What  is 
meant  by  the  statement  that  heroic  action  must 
have  a  noble  object  is  that  it  must  be  a  disinter- 
ested, self-forgetful,  self-denying  action;  not  a 
deed,  however  bravely  facing  danger,  undertaken 
for  mere  personal  pleasure  or  selfish  profit  or  for 
any  selfish  satisfaction  whatever:  it  cannot  be  a 
deed  of  mere  passion,  or  of  cruelty,  or  of  brute 
force,  or  of  intellectual  cunning,  however  high 
daring  may  be  displayed  in  accomplishing  the  end. 
Heroism,  wherever  shown,  commands  admiration, 
it  excites  our  moral  homage;  and,  in  order  to  do 
that,  it  must  have  a  moral  quality,  it  must  be  an 
action  impelled  by  an  unselfish  sympathy  or  benev- 
olence, or  one  that  the  doer  believes  to  be  com- 
manded by  his  convictions  of  truth  and  right.  In 
a  word,  it  must  be  action  for  a  noble,  and  not  an 
ignoble,  object. 

Our  definition  of  heroism,  then,  I  believe,  is 
justified  in  its  three  particulars:  it  is  valorous 
action,   against  great  odds,    for  a  noble  object. 

Now,  is  there  no  opportunity  for  this  kind  of 
action  in  the  common  walks  of  life?  Is  it  only  the 
soldier,  the  explorer,  the  public  philanthropist,  the 
people  who  live  on  the  frontiers  of  civilization  and 
in  places  conspicuously  exposed  to  sudden  emer- 
gencies of  action, —  is  it  only  classes  of  persons 
such  as  these  that  have  any  occasion  to  act  valor- 
ously  against  great  odds  for  a  noble  end?  Indeed, 
thus  to  put  the  question  is  almost  to  answer  it. 
When  we  say  "hero,"  the  imagination  conjures  up 


280  HEROISMS    IN    DAILY    LIFE 

some  distant,  dazzling  personage,  of  whom  we  have 
read  in  some  history  or  fiction,  —  the  actor  in  a  tale 
that  is  seldom  repeated,  the  rare  beings  who  in 
ancient  days  were  even  declared  after  death  to  be 
demigods  and  gods  for  their  great  deeds.  But, 
when  we  examine  the  attributes  of  these  beings, 
and  say  that  the  hero  is  one  who  acts  valorously 
against  great  odds,  for  a  noble  object,  we  have 
brought  the  quality  of  heroism  home  to  our  own 
doors.  If  this  be  heroism,  who  of  us  is  not  called 
to  act  the  part?  To  whom  of  us  does  not  come  the 
opportunity  to  act  it?  and  the  opportunity,  not  at 
rare  intervals,  once  or  thrice  in  a  life-time,  but 
constantly  in  our  daily  effort  practically  to  solve 
the  problem  of  life? 

There  is  no  one  of  us,  surely,  who  does  not  have, 
or  may  not  have,  a  noble  object  for  which  to  live. 
The  object  may,  in  fact,  be  far  above  our  achieve- 
ments. We  may  be  daily  denying  it  in  practice. 
We  may  seldom  strive  for  it  as  we  might.  And 
yet  we  are  conscious  of  a  law  which  imposes  upon 
us  an  obligation  to  live  for  noble  purposes  and  pur- 
suits. To  every  man  and  woman  is  given  the  task 
to  form  a  character,  according  to  the  demands  of 
truth  and  rectitude,  for  the  expression  of  divine 
righteousness  in  the  human  world.  To  do  the 
utmost  possible  toward  this  end  out  of  the  materials 
given  is  the  duty.  The  materials  may  not  always 
be  of  the  best.  Sometimes  they  may  be  amended, 
and  then  that  is  the  first  duty.  But,  when  they 
cannot  be,  when  our  lot  and  circumstances  and  rela- 


HEROISMS    IN    DAILY    LIFE  28I 

tions  in  life  are  fixed  for  us,  then  the  duty,  keeping 
ever  the  rules  of  rectitude  and  truth  as  guides,  is  to 
mould  character  to  the  highest  form  possible  from 
the  given  conditions.  This  law  never  relaxes  the 
tension  of  its  obligation  upon  us  for  a  single  mo- 
ment. We  are  bound  to  live  for  the  right  and  the 
true.  Intuition,  experience,  the  motive  of  highest 
usefulness,  the  desire  for  the  greatest  happiness, 
the  instinct  of  moral  sympathy,  all  enforce  upon  us 
the  sanctity  of  this  obligation.  It  is  an  obligation 
that  we  cannot  violate  with  impunity.  It  is  an 
obligation  that  we  cannot  violate  and  feel  entirely 
at  ease,  unless  we  have  suffered  our  moral  percep- 
tions to  have  become  dulled  by  abuse.  There  is 
before  us,  therefore,  the  highest  and  noblest  of  all 
objects, —  the  formation  of  true,  upright,  beneficent 
character,  an  object  that  is  constant,  that  is  not  for 
rare  days  and  infrequent  opportunities,  but  for  all 
days;  and  there  is  no  act  that  we  do  that  does  not 
have  some  bearing  upon  this  object  either  as  help- 
ing or  hindering  its  achievement.  None  of  us, 
then,  can  say  that  we  have  no  opportunity  for  at 
least  this  one  among  the  essential  conditions  of 
heroism,  —  a  noble  object. 

But  do  we  find  it  easy  to  keep  this  object  steadily 
in  view,  and  to  keep  our  acts  steadily  bent  to  the 
task  of  achieving  it?  By  no  means,  we  answer. 
We  imagine  it  might  be  much  easier  if  the  circum- 
stances were  different ;  and  we  sometimes  picture 
to  ourselves  how  much  more  truly  we  might  live, 
how  much  better  might  be  our  characters  and  more 


282  HEROISMS    IN    DAILY    LIFE 

satisfactory  our  achievements,  if  we  had  only  been 
thrown    amidst    other    circumstances,    if    we    could 
change  places  with  some  of  our  neighbors,  if  we 
had  lived   in  some  more  favorable   locality,   if  we 
had    had    more    money,    or    perhaps    less,    or    if    a 
different  kind  of  fortune  had  attended  us  through 
the  years.      But  all   these   imaginings  are  but  ex- 
cuses for  present  delinquencies.      If  we  could  only 
get  rid  of  the  special  difficulties  of  our  lot,  of  the 
common-place  duties  that  so  absorb  our  faculties 
and  time,  of  the  drudgeries  to  which  we  are  com- 
pelled,   but    which    so    stand    in    the    way    of    our 
achieving  those  things  that  we  most  want  to  do,  we 
profess  to  believe  that  we  should  be  much  better 
men  and  women,   that   then  we  should  have  more 
energy  and  enthusiasm  and  opportunity  for  the  cult- 
ure and  pursuit  of  those  higher  objects  which  we 
recognize  as  demanding  our  allegiance,   that   then 
we  should  be  able  to  present  a  higher  type  of  char- 
acter and  conduct.      But  here,  then,  in  these  antag- 
onistic conditions  and  circumstances  of  which  we 
complain,  are  the  very  obstacles  and  hardships  for 
calling  forth  that  heroic  quality  of  character  which 
appears  to  us  so  admirable.     Did  our  lot   in    life 
make   it  entirely  easy  to  attain  the   lofty  type  of 
character    which    our    consciences    most    approve, 
there  would  be,  as  we  have  seen,  no  room  for  hero- 
ism in  the  pursuit.      By  the  resistance  to  be  over- 
come is  that  quality  measured.      Heroism  is  gauged 
not  by  favoring  circumstances,  not  by  the  wheel  of 
fortune  bringing  an  aspirant's  wishes  to  the  top, 


HEROISMS    IN    DAILY    LIFE  283 

but  by  that  moral  pluck  and  determination  and 
will-power  which  push  their  way  against  unfavoring 
circumstances  and  compel  success  from  adverse 
fortune  itself.  The  success,  be  it  remembered,  of 
which  we  now  speak,  is  the  noble  life,  the  true 
character,  the  honorable  moral  career.  It  may  have 
or  it  may  not  have  outward  wealth.  It  may  attain 
or  it  may  not  attain  the  external  position  and  con- 
ditions that  once  seemed  desirable.  But  the  very 
hardness  of  an  unfavorable  lot  has  been  met  by 
moral  pluck  and  vigorous  determination  in  such  a 
way  as  to  develop  the  inner  fibre  of  a  strong  moral 
character,  and  this  is  human  life's  highest  success. 
Heroism  looks  for  no  other.  And  here,  in  the 
conditions  of  the  common  lot,  the  drudging  daily 
labors  that  have  so  little  of  romance,  the  unpal- 
atable ever-recurring  duties,  the  plodding  necessi- 
ties that  appear  to  allow  so  little  room  for  the 
culture  that  is  craved,  the  homely  struggles  with 
common,  unexciting  temptations,  which  have  no 
epic  flow  and  never  rise  to  the  interest  of  a  tragic 
crisis, —  here  is  a  field  where  heroism  may  find 
ample  opportunity  to  test  its  mettle.  We  have  our 
moral  ideals  of  life.  They  are  of  celestial  heights 
of  attainment.  But  here  are  the  petty  conditions 
of  the  day,  of  the  hour,  the  selfish  anxieties  and 
passions,  the  home  care  and  trial,  the  pressing 
earthy  work,  the  distracting  errands  hither  and 
thither,  which  drag  upon  our  feet  and  threaten  to 
prevent  our  ever  reaching  that  goal  of  our  hopes. 
The    odds    are    perilously    against    us    unless     the 


284  HEROISMS    IN    DAILY    LIFE 

heroic  quality  of  character  come  to  the  rescue;  and 
that  the  odds  are  against  us  is  an  appeal  for  aid 
which  heroism  by  its  very  nature,  if  it  be  present, 
must  recognize. 

We  find,  then,  in  the  common  paths  of  daily  life 
two  of  the  essential  conditions  of  heroic  action, —  a 
noble  object  of  pursuit  and  obstacles  in  the  way 
which  throw  the  odds  greatly  against  the  chance  of 
attainment.  Why,  then,  do  we  not  oftener  meet 
this  quality  of  heroism  in  the  common  paths  of 
life?  It  is  true  we  often  do  meet  it  there;  and 
still  oftener  perhaps  we  know  that  it  exists  there, 
although  it  may  be  concealed  from  all  eyes  until 
we  see  it  in  its  results.  But  why  do  we  not  very 
generally  see  it?  Why  do  we  not  meet  it  every- 
where where  we  meet  these  two  of  its  essential 
conditions?  The  reason  must  be  because  the  third 
condition  is  wanting.  Heroism  we  defined  as  val- 
orous action,  against  great  odds,  for  a  noble  object. 
We  have  found  the  common  paths  of  daily  life 
affording  ample  opportunity  for  the  noble  object, 
and  also,  in  the  obstacles  to  that  object,  supply- 
ing the  resistances  which  challenge  heroism  to  its 
tasks.  If,  therefore,  the  heroism  does  not  appear, 
it  must  be  because  the  valor  is  not  there  to  respond 
to  the  challenge.  There  is  a  deficiency  of  moral 
courage,  a  lack  of  brave,  robust  vigor  in  attacking 
the  evils  that  beset  character,  a  too  willowy  weak- 
ness in  bending  before  them,  a  want  of  moral 
muscle  to  resist  and  conquer  them.  And  this,  our 
logical    conclusion,     would    doubtless    correspond 


HEROISMS    IN    DAILY    LIFE  285 

with  the  practical  diagnosis  of  the  trouble  in  such 
cases.  We  should  discover  a  deficiency  of  that 
healthy  moral  sentiment  which  has  such  an  instinc- 
tive aversion  to  evil  that  it  is  inwardly  compelled 
to  assail  and  destroy  it.  This  sentiment  being 
defective  and  diseased,  moral  atrophy  and  paralysis 
ensue.  A  character  of  flabby  moral  fibre  cannot  be 
heroic.  A  vigorous  moral  sympathy,  pushing  by 
inherent  compulsion  to  action  against  all  distress 
and  wrong,  is  the  first  condition  of  heroism.  That 
supplies  the  valor,  without  which  all  the  opportu- 
nities for  heroic  deeds,  whether  in  common  life  or 
in  extraordinary  emergencies,  would  be  offered  in 
vain.  But,  having  the  valor,  then  there  is  no  need 
to  go  beyond  the  limits  of  that  daily  common  life 
in  which  we  are  all  sharers  to  find  a  field  for  the 
truest  heroism. 

Let  us  now  bring  these  generalities  down  to 
some  special  application.  What  is  it  that  we  indi- 
vidually first  and  most  need  to  do,  beginning  now 
just  where  we  are,  in  solving  the  problem  of  life? 
It  is  not  to  dream  or  even  to  inquire  how  we  might 
act,  were  we  differently  situated;  but  it  is  to  make 
a  vital  junction  here  and  now  between  the  actual 
conditions  given  to  our  hands  and  that  better, 
higher  life  we  hope  to  attain.  And  probably  most 
of  us  will  think  at  once  of  certain  temptations 
which  severally  beset  us,  and  which  we  know  must 
be  resisted  and  overcome;  of  certain  evil  habits 
which  stand  in  the  way  of  our  progress,  and  which 
we  know  must  be  put  off  before  that  progress  can 


286  HEROISMS    IN    DAILY    LIFE 

be  assured;  of  a  certain  routine  of  unprofitable 
activity  or  of  sloth  that  is  to  be  exchanged  for  use- 
ful service;  of  certain  trials  and  sufferings  that  may 
be  borne  with  more  equanimity  and  courage;  of 
certain  obstacles  that  stand  in  the  way  of  our  better 
ideals.  Whatever  may  be  the  nature  of  these 
moral  reforms  which  we  see  to  be  needed  in  our 
lives,  there  is  no  other  way  to  accomplish  the  work 
but  by  definitely  and  faithfully  taking  it  in  hand, 
piece  by  piece  and  day  by  day,  keeping  to  the  task 
till  it  is  finished.  It  is  vain  to  expect  that  a  re- 
form will  come  by  mere  general  regrets  over  pres- 
ent failures  and  a  general  wish  and  hope  for  better 
things;  and  it  is  perilous  to  wait  for  a  change  of 
circumstances  to  effect  the  desired  result.  The 
temptations,  the  bad  habits,  the  trying  circum- 
stances, are  to  be  met  each  on  its  own  field.  If  it 
is  a  too  easily  angered  temper,  if  it  is  a  slander- 
ous or  untruthful  tongue,  if  it  is  an  indolent,  dila- 
tory disposition,  if  it  is  a  complaining  spirit,  if  it 
is  a  rebellious  physical  appetite,  if  it  is  moroseness 
or  avarice  or  covetousness  or  unjust  greed,  if  it  is 
persistent  neglect  of  well-recognized  duties,  if  it 
is  inclination  to  selfish  ease  or  pleasure,  each  one 
of  these  faults  calls  for  a  special  vigilance  and 
effort  to  overcome  it.  Having  learned  what  are 
the  faults  which  we  need  each  in  our  own  case  to 
conquer,  —  and  those  of  us  who  have  come  to  years 
of  discretion  know  pretty  well  what  is  the  moral 
matter  with  us, —  there  is  no  longer  time  nor  occa- 
sion   for    parleying    with    our    errors    or    excusing 


HEROISMS    IN    DAILY    LIFE  28/ 

them;  but  the  demand  is  for  action.  Each  morn- 
ing should  witness  a  resolute  purpose  to  do  battle 
against  these  foes  of  our  moral  nature,  these  ob- 
stacles which  stand  in  the  way  of  that  ideal  of 
character  which  has  our  highest  homage;  and  every 
evening  should  have,  if  possible,  the  satisfaction  of 
noting  some  progress  achieved.  Nowhere  in  the 
whole  wide  range  of  human  activity  is  there  more 
call  for  the  heroic  spirit  and  the  heroic  deed  than 
in  this  struggle  of  our  moral  natures  to  put  down 
their  own  evil  tendencies,  and  to  shape  character 
by  the  highest  patterns  of  rectitude,  purity,  truth- 
fulness, and  kindness.  Here  are  the  fields,  and 
they  are  open  to  us  all,  where  the  highest  prizes  of 
heroism  may  be  won.  Here  is  the  noble  object, — 
the  very  noblest  to  which  we  can  apply  our  powers ; 
here  the  obstacles,  which  valiant  souls  pride  them- 
selves on  conquering;  here  the  valor,  as  great  as 
that  which  fights  in  armies  a  nation's  battles  for 
the  right, —  nay,  the  need  often  is  for  greater,  since 
that  contends  amidst  the  plaudits  of  an  on-look- 
ing world,  while  this  may  have  to  struggle  all  in 
secret,  with  no  applause  save  that  responsive  echo 
in  one's  own  breast  which  is  God's  whisper  of 
satisfaction. 

And,  if  we  are  complaining  that  our  lives  are 
monotonous,  that  they  are  void  of  incident  and  in- 
terest, day  following  day  on  one  arid  level,  then  I 
know  not  how  we  could  better  break  the  monotony 
and  give  ourselves  the  high  delight  of  a  fruitful 
activity  than   by  engaging,  one  by  one,  the  faults 


288  HEROISMS    IN    DAILY    LIFE 

and  vices  and  evil  habits  which  now  may  enslave 
us,  throwing  off  their  domination,  and  making  our- 
selves their  master,  making  the  soul  the  master  of 
the  flesh  and  of  circumstance.  It  is  these  contests 
and  conquests  that  make  the  interest  of  the  biog- 
raphies and  the  stories  which  we  read;  and  we 
have,  therefore,  the  materials  of  a  real  romance  in 
our  hands  every  day.  What  prouder  thought  can  I 
have  than  to  know  that  this  day,  in  this  very  part 
of  life's  drama  I  am  acting,  the  good  within 
me  has  got  the  better  of  the  evil?  To  have  made 
that  conquest  is  the  hero's  title  to  the  proudest 
claim  on  his  escutcheon.  Changing  a  single  word 
in  Tennyson's  lines,  they  strike  the  key-note  of 
this  moral  battle  which  we  wage  for  high  ideals 
against  our  own   lower  inclinations  and  habits:  — 

"  Ah,  my  God, 
What  might  I  not  have  made  of  thy  fair  world. 
Had  I  but  loved  thy  highest  [pleasures]  here? 
It  was  my  duty  to  have  loved  the  highest : 
It  surely  was  my  profit  had  I  known : 
It  would  have  been  my  pleasure  had  I  seen. 
We  needs  must  love  the  highest  when  we  see  it." 

And  in  the  battle  of  life,  friends,  we  do  see  this 
Highest  Law,  which  asks  for  our  fealty. 


THE    SAVING    POWER    OF   TRUTH. 

The  new  President  of  Columbia  College,  in  his 
inaugural  address  a  few  days  ago,  speaking  of  the 
beneficence  of  such  a  seat  of  learning  in  the  midst 
of  the  metropolitan  whirl  of  business  activities  in 
the  city  of  New  York,  said:  "The  work  of  the  col- 
lege would  be  valueless  to-morrow  if  even  the 
wealth  of  New  York  could  bribe  her  instructors  to 
teach  as  true  what  they  know  to  be  false.  Truth- 
fulness is  the  one  essential  fundamental  quality  of 
a  teacher.  Without  it  he  may  not  be  a  teacher. 
Yet  it  is  not  the  only  quality.  The  teacher,  like 
the  scholar,  must  himself  be  teachable.  An  ever- 
heightening  sky  for  human  thought,  an  ever-widen- 
ing horizon  for  human  knowledge,  an  absolute 
truthfulness  in  the  expression  of  the  light  within, 
—  these  are  the  distinguishing  marks  of  a  great 
university." 

If  President  Low  had  been  describing  the  ob- 
jects of  a  religious  society,  he  could  hardly  have 
chosen  more  fitting  words.  Add  to  his  description 
the  inculcation  of  the  sacredness  of  duty, —  which 
may  yet  be  implied  in  his  large  and  noble  general- 
ization,—  and  we  could  not  ask  for  better  terms  in 
which  to  express  the  chief  uses  of  a  church  in  the 
midst  of  the  prevalent  passions  and  ambitions  that 
are  such  dominant,  every-day  factors   in  the  affairs 


290  THE    SAVING    POWER    OF   TRUTH 

of  mankind.  At  least,  the  words  suggest  that 
learning  and  religion  are  natural  coworkers  for 
the  highest  welfare  of  humanity.  Learning,  thus 
nobly  defined,  and  religion,  rationally  interpreted, 
come  into  the  same  road  and  lead  finally  toward 
the  same  end, —  the  supreme  devotion  of  man  to 
truth,  truth  in  its  largest,  highest,  and  ever  deep- 
ening and  increasing  sense.  If  absolute  truthful- 
ness in  the  expression,  through  word  and  conduct, 
of  the  light  within,  be  the  object  of  learning,  it  is 
no  less  the  object  of  religion.  Truth  itself,  since 
it  is  but  the  reality  of  things  to  which  man  stands 
in  constant,  vital  relationship,  should  have  that 
saving  efficacy  and  power  which  religion  has  always 
promised  as  its  gift  to  man.  Hence  my  subject 
this  morning,    "The   Saving  Power  of  Truth." 

But  a  curious  anomaly  of  human  history  presents 
itself  to  us  at  the  outset.  The  moral  and  religious 
leaders  of  all  nations  have  always  asserted  that 
truth  is  all-powerful,  that  it  is  the  essence  of  All- 
mighty  Being,  that  it  will  make  men  free,  and 
guide  them  safely;  and  the  mental  and  moral  sense 
of  mankind  in  general  has  given  assent  to  these 
propositions.  Yet  everywhere,  from  the  times  im- 
memorial when  Adam  of  the  ancient  legend  at- 
tempted concealment  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  and 
from  the  later  times  when  Peter  denied  and  Judas 
betrayed  their  Master,  men  have  tried  to  live  by  a 
falsehood.  The  attempt  has  always  in  the  end 
proved  to  be  vain;  yet  the  lesson  of  its  uselessness 
has  been  a  hard  one  to  learn,  and  has  not  yet  been 


THE    SAVING    POWER   OF    TRUTH  29! 

mastered.     Even  in  the  old  legend  of  Genesis,  the 
penetrative   eye    of    Jehovah    detected    the   hiding- 
place  of  the  disobedient  pair  and  brought  them  to 
the  light.      Peter's  falsehood  only  confounded  him 
with  tears  of  shame;  and  the  lie  of  Judas  was  too 
great  for  mortal  man  to  bear,  and,  like  the  fraud  of 
many  a  man  since,  confessed  itself   in  the  coward's 
act  of  suicide.      Still,  everywhere,  the  old  attempt 
goes  on  as   if  some  time  or  other  it  could  succeed. 
Still   people   are   afraid   or  ashamed   of  the  naked 
simplicity  of  truth   if  it  threatens  to  lead  them  to 
espouse  an  unpopular  cause;  and  they  try  to  cover 
themselves  with  some  petty  contrivance  of  deceit 
for  eluding  their  own  consciences.     Still,  there  are 
people  who  betray  truth  with  a  kiss,  and  sell   her 
for   gold.     Still    there    are    the    cowardly    whose 
minds  see  the  truth,  but  whose  hearts  are  too  timid 
to  follow  when  danger  to   position    or    popularity 
appears.     Thus   the   effort   continues   to   live  by  a 
He.     The  effort  is  of  manifold  grades  and  kinds, 
from   the   minor  deceits   of   trade   and   social    life, 
which  try  to  protect  themselves  under  the  guise  of 
special  moral  codes  for  business  and  society,  to  the 
deeds  of  men  who  rob  a  bank  of  its  securities,  and 
then   profess  amazement    that    the  world    does  not 
recognize   their   operations   as    in   accordance   with 
approved  methods  of  Wall   Street  finance.      It  ap- 
pears again  in  the  sharp    manoeuvring  of  partisan 
politicians   to  outwit  each   other  in   parliamentary 
law  and   legislation  and  in  election  campaigns.      It 
rises  in  religious  robes  in  the  Assembly  of   Presby- 


292  THE    SAVING    POWER   OF    TRUTH 

terians  to  plead  that  the  creed  and  the  catechism 
remain  unrevised,  because  the  very  words  have  be- 
come reverend  and  sacred  with  age,  and  can  now  be 
repeated  with  new  meanings  and  mental  reserva- 
tions by  those  who  cannot  accept  them  in  their 
original  significance.  In  the  Episcopal  General 
Convention,  for  similar  reasons,  it  deprecates, 
against  many  conscience  appeals,  a  revision  of  the 
Prayer  Book,  which  has  guided  the  worship  of  so 
many  generations.  It  lobbies  in  the  National 
Unitarian  Conference,  of  which  a  large  body  of  the 
membership  now  says,  in  respect  to  the  theological 
phrases  of  its  constitution:  "They  don't  mean  any- 
thing to  us:  they  are  a  dead  letter.  But  to  a  few 
among  us  they  mean  something,  and  to  the  world 
outside  they  seem  to  mean  a  good  deal.  So  don't 
touch  them,  but,  in  the  interests  of  harmony  and 
quiet  and  peace,  let  them  stand  there,  though  on 
the  frontals  of  our  temple;  we  don't  or  need  not  see 
them  as  we  go  under."  And  if,  among  men  who 
have  risen  to  such  conspicuous  positions  in  the 
world  as  religious  and  political  leaders,  there  occur 
these  evidences  of  carelessness,  timidity,  and  be- 
trayal in  the  presence  of  truth's  commands,  is  it 
any  wonder  that  young  people,  young  men  espe- 
cially, should  deem  it  easier  and  safer  to  evade  the 
law  of  moral  truth  as  it  affects  personal  character, 
and,  when  tempted  into  crooked  paths  for  sudden 
riches  or  into  courses  of  pleasurable  and  vicious 
self-indulgence,  should  think  it  may  be  possible 
somehow  successfully  to  escape  the  retribution? 


THE    SAVING    POWER    OF    TRUTH  293 

But  perhaps  I  shall  be  asked,  How,  among  the 
many  statements  and  standards  of  truth  that  are 
offered,  are  we  to  know  what  to  accept  as  the  gen- 
uine truth  which  saves?  Let  us,  then,  divest  our- 
selves at  once  of  the  ecclesiastical  and  theological 
definitions  of  truth  which  the  various  sects  have  set 
forth.  Let  us  not  suppose  the  saving  truth  to  be 
all  contained  in  the  limits  of  any  creed  or  between 
the  covers  of  any  book.  Let  us  not  presume  it  to 
be  identical  with  any  particular  scheme  of  belief 
which  any  church  of  mankind,  however  venerable 
or  learned,  has  taught.  These,  at  best,  are  but 
partial  and  temporary  expressions,  finite  apprehen- 
sions and  interpretations,  of  that  which  in  its  nat- 
ure is  universal  and  absolute.  The  truth  we  want, 
the  truth  which  is  to  be  sought  through  "an  ever- 
heightening  sky  and  an  ever-widening  horizon,"  is 
the  absolute  and  total  Reality  of  things  in  the  uni- 
verse, whether  pertaining  to  the  earth  or  the 
heavens,  or  to  matter  or  thought  or  spirit,  or  to  any 
other  possibilities  of  life  and  existence.  Truth,  in 
this  absolute  sense,  is  synonymous  with  Infinite  and 
Eternal  Being.  To  use  the  words  of  an  old  writer, 
it  is  "the  breath  of  the  power  of  God;  .  .  .  and, 
being  but  one,  she  can  do  all  things,  .  .  .  and  in 
all  ages,  entering  into  holy  souls,  she  maketh  them 
friends  of  God  and  prophets." 

To  illustrate  the  beneficent  power  of  truth  in 
this  large  universal  sense,  we  may  begin  on  the 
lowest  plane  of  truth;  that  is,  with  that  kind  of 
material  and  practical  knowledge  which   is  gained 


294        THE  SAVING  POWER  OF  TRUTH 

through  observation  of  the  facts  and  laws  of  nature. 
What  independence  and  power  the  human  race  has 
attained  simply  through  increasing  knowledge  of 
those  natural  forces  and  laws  which  have  been  ap- 
plied to  the  arts  of  life!  The  difference  between 
the  savage  man  and  the  brute  animal  is  scarcely 
greater  than  the  difference  between  the  most  civil- 
ized nation  of  the  earth  to-day  and  the  nation  that 
stood  highest  in  civilization  a  thousand  years  ago. 
Within  that  time  the  methods  of  domestic,  indus- 
trial, and  social  life  have  been  revolutionized  and 
built  up  anew  by  the  practical  application  of  that 
kind  of  knowledge  which  the  physical  sciences 
have  brought.  In  the  acquisition  of  this  sort  of 
truth  we  may  largely  trace  the  history  of  modern 
civilization.  To  civilize  a  people,  in  the  modern 
sense,  is  to  educate  them  to  the  use  of  the  forces 
and  laws  of  the  natural  world,  to  teach  them  how 
to  build  dwellings  so  as  at  the  same  time  to  shelter 
from  the  cold  and  the  storm  and  to  let  in  the  air 
and  the  light;  how  to  get  warmth  in  winter  from 
fire,  instead  of  burrowing  in  the  ground  like  the 
brute  to  find  it;  how  to  tame  wild  beasts  from  sav- 
age ferocity  into  submissive  helpers;  how  to  make 
the  cold  zones  inhabitable  by  converting  natural 
growths  from  plants  and  animals  into  clothing; 
how  to  cultivate  the  earth  and  to  extract  the  riches 
of  its  soil  and  its  mines;  how  to  transform  its 
products  into  wholesome  food;  how  to  convert 
wood  and  metals  into  countless  utensils  and  tools 
for  better  utilizing  and  multiplying  the  power  of 


THE    SAVING    POWER   OF    TRUTH  295 

human  hands;  how  to  use  nature's  powers  so  as  to 
enable  one  man  to  do  the  work  of  a  thousand;  and, 
finally,  how  through  the  printing-press,  to  preserve 
all  this  knowledge  and  the  thoughts  of  the  wisest 
men  so  that  the  child  thereafter  may  know  them 
without  the  tedious  experience  of  discovery,  and 
they  may  never  again  be  lost  out  of  the  world. 
Who  can  estimate  the  power  which  this  knowl- 
edge of  nature  has  given,  and  will  yet  give,  to 
mankind?  And,  literally,  it  has  been  a  saving, 
uplifting,  educating  power.  That  one  fact  —  the 
discovery  of  fire —  lifted  man  from  the  grovelling 
condition  of  the  brute  into  the  erect  posture  of  the 
human  being.  Before  he  burrowed :  afterward  he 
built.  Before  he  crouched:  afterward  he  stood. 
Before  he  was  of  the  earth,  confined  by  its  tether: 
afterward  he  walked  earth's  surface  free,  and  all 
zones  and  climates  became  accessible  to  him.  The 
savage  is  the  slave  of  Nature:  he  lives  in  subjec- 
tion to  her  conditions  and  in  terror  of  her  forces. 
To  the  civilized  man  Nature  is  the  willing  servant: 
he  has  learned  her  secrets  and  mastered  her  forces. 
In  defiance  of  ancient  Scripture,  he  has  "measured 
the  breadth  of  the  earth,"  "entered  into  the 
springs  of  the  sea,"  and  "into  the  treasures  of  the 
snow."  He  has  dared  even  to  lift  his  head  toward 
the  heavens  to  compute  the  paths  and  the  times 
of  the  stars.  The  sea  is  his  highway.  Fire  and 
water  he  has  yoked  together  for  his  strongest  steed. 
He  has  hooped  the  earth  with  his  iron  roads,  con- 
verted miles  of  space  into  moments  of  time,  and 


296        THE  SAVING  POWER  OF  TRUTH 

chained  the  lightnings  so  that  they  say  to  him, 
"Here  we  are,"  and  obediently  do  his  errands. 

Thus  it  is  that  the  knowledge  of  truth  as  it  is  in 
nature  has  lifted  men  out  of  the  limiting  and  de- 
grading conditions  of  savage  life,  made  them  mas- 
ters of  natural  forces,  and  given  them  dominion 
over  the  earth,  with  a  measure  of  the  freedom  and 
power  which  we  conceive  to  be  the  attributes  of  In- 
finite Being.  It  has  been  estimated  that,  through 
the  application  of  nature's  help  in  the  various 
mechanical  arts,  the  effective  power  of  every  per- 
son's hands  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts  has  been 
increased  more  than  a  thousand-fold,  so  that  even 
a  child  of  ten  years  could  now  do  work  that  would 
require,  if  not  thus  aided,  the  strength  of  a  thou- 
sand able-bodied  men. 

But  all  this  is  only  one  kind  of  truth  and  one 
form  of  its  application,  and  these  the  lowest. 
This  domain  of  physical  truth,  vast  and  momen- 
tous as  it  is,  needs  to  be  included  in  and  balanced 
by  that  larger  realm  of  truth  which  is  both  intel- 
lectual and  moral.  It  needs  this  balance  and  en- 
largement of  relationship  in  order  to  insure  its  full 
and  permanent  beneficence  for  man.  Mere  knowl- 
edge alone  is  power,  but  it  is  not  always  nor  neces- 
sarily beneficent  power.  The  human  mind  may  be 
educated  to  great  ingenuity  and  skill  in  certain 
directions,  and  yet  the  intellectual  life  as  a  whole 
remain  narrow,  shallow,  and  unfruitful,  and  the 
moral  nature  lie  dormant,  or  even  be  perverted  and 
enslaved    to   evil.     What,   indeed,   is   most    of    all 


THE    SAVING    POWER   OF    TRUTH  297 

wanted,  in  order  to  make  available  for  the  highest 
uses  that  human  power  which  results  from  conquest 
of  the  truths  of  nature,  is  secure  establishment  in 
some  truth  that  is  deeper  and  higher.  No  ad- 
vancement in  the  physical  sciences  and  arts,  no 
accumulation  of  material  power  and  riches,  can 
promote  man's  highest  good  without  a  correspond- 
ing increase  of  moral  perception  and  accumulation 
of  moral  power.  All  material  civilization,  how- 
ever splendid,  is  but  a  gaudy,  empty  show  if  it 
does  not  ascend  to  moral  and  spiritual  ends. 
Boast  of  our  modern  civilization  as  we  will,  and, 
though  we  claim  that  it  is  bulwarked  against  peril 
by  the  printing-press  and  the  public  school,  yet  we 
can  never  be  sure  that  it  will  not  lapse  into  an- 
other dark  era  of  barbarism,  or  a  social  condition 
of  things  as  bad  as  that,  unless  it  be  penetrated 
through  and  through  with  moral  ideas  and  conse- 
crated by  an  ideal,  moral  enthusiasm.  This  won- 
derful progress  of  mankind  through  the  discovery 
and  application  of  the  truths  of  material  nature 
must  be  guided  by  the  constant  and  higher  applica- 
tion of  the  truths  of  the  spirit.  Popular  liberty 
will  find  no  stable  throne  nor  lasting  crown  until 
the  realm  of  material  forces  is  subordinated  to  the 
power  of  ethical  laws. 

And  it  must  be  admitted  that  there  is  much  in 
our  modern  civilization  that  is  unsatisfactory  and 
unsound.  Its  dominant  activities  spring  from  and 
appeal  to  motives  that  are  selfish  and  sordid. 
While  it  has  lifted  us  out  of  the  depths  of  tradi- 


298  THE    SAVING    POWER    OF    TRUTH 

tional  ignorance  and  gross  degradation,  it  has  nour- 
ished vices  peculiar  to  itself.      It  has  fostered  an 
unwholesome    love    of    gain,    irrespective    of    the 
rights  of  fellow-men  or  the  calls  of  human  sym- 
pathy.    It    has    whetted    certain    appetites    of    the 
flesh  to  a  keener  edge.     The  Chinese  government 
has   in   vain   besought    Great    Britain   to   keep   the 
deadly   opium    drug    of    her   civilization   at    home. 
Missionaries    in   the   new   Congo  State  in  Africa, 
which  was  to  civilize    the  negroes    through    com- 
merce,   find   their  work    paralyzed    because  of   the 
rum    flowing    in    there  from   civilized  —  aye,  from 
Christian  —  England,    Holland,  and  our  own  Bos- 
ton.    If  our  civilization   has  brought  us  immense 
power  and  freedom  over  nature,  it  has  also  brought 
a  new  bondage.     Millions  are  enslaved  to  its  mad 
lust  of  gain.     The  quiet,  domestic  virtues  go  down 
before    the    rushing    train    of    material    enterprise. 
Homely  honesty  is  often  eclipsed  by  the  blinding 
dust  and  smoke.     Justice  and   humanity   may  get 
on  board,  if  they  can;  but  the  train  bound  express 
for  the  terminus   Plutocracy  cannot  stop  for  them. 
Commerce  rules,  the  manufacturing  interest   rules, 
gold  rules.     Trade  sets  up  a  moral  standard  of  its 
own  quite  different  from  the  Golden  Rule  of  Jesus 
and   Zoroaster  and   Confucius.     This  great  country 
of  ours  tried  to   live  for  nearly  a  century  with  a 
dreadful     lie    in    its    bosom, —  proclaiming    equal 
rights  for  all   men,  but   legalizing  the  enslavement 
of     black    men    because    cotton    was    kins:.      "The 
higher    law," — that    was    all    transcendental    talk, 


THE    SAVING    POWER   OF    TRUTH  299 

and  touched  not  the  earth.     For  practical  life  there 
was  no  higher  law  than  expediency. 

This,  I  believe,  is  no  exaggeration  of  what  mod- 
ern civilization  has  been  on  its  evil  side.  I  ac- 
knowledge that  it  has  another  side,  and  have  tried 
to  sketch  it.  I  recognize  the  vast  power  the 
human  race  has  acquired  through  use  of  the  forces 
of  nature,  and  the  magnificent  foundation  thus  laid 
for  future  achievements.  But,  in  order  that  these 
achievements  may  be  secured  and  the  evils  of  our 
present  one-sided  civilization  neutralized,  there 
should  be  the  same  fearless  pursuit  in  the  discov- 
ery and  establishing  of  intellectual  and  moral 
truth.  We  are  now  applying  to  life,  for  the  most 
part,  only  one  fragmentary  part  of  truth.  We 
want  the  whole  truth,  full  rounded  in  all  its  con- 
stituent elements,  to  make  individual  life  worth 
the  living,  and  worthily  to  complete  the  unfolding 
drama  of  human  history.  Our  material  civiliza- 
tion is  only  a  basis  on  which  mind  and  heart  and 
soul  are  to  rear  their  structures.  What  high  art 
should  come,  what  literature,  what  poetry,  what  phi- 
losophies and  humanities,  what  equity  of  law 
and  administration,  what  social  fraternity,  what 
strength  and  graces  of  personal  character  should 
appear,  as  the  legitimate  sequence  of  this  conquest 
of  nature  by  the  powers  of  mind!  The  true,  the 
just,  the  beautiful, — ^not  till  these  shall  rule  in 
private,  in  public,  and  in  national  life,  will  our 
present  era  of  material  civilization  be  worthily 
crowned. 


300        THE  SAVING  POWER  OF  TRUTH 

But  there  are  many  who  aver  that  these  higher 
truths  of  the  human  soul  are  impracticable;  that 
they  must  remain  as  ideals  in  the  sky,  while  prac- 
tice must  come  down  to  a  lower  level,  more  nearly 
in  accordance  with  the  methods  in  vogue  around 
us.  Here  is  one  of  the  strangest  delusions  that 
the  world  has  known,  yet  it  is  a  delusion  that  has 
assiduously  been  kept  up  from  age  to  age, —  that 
truth  is  not  so  practicable  as  error;  that  a  half- 
truth  is  stronger  than  the  whole  truth ;  that  wrong 
and  falsehood  may  be  perfectly  practicable,  but 
their  opposing  truth,  though  clearly  known,  is  im- 
practicable. If  this  were  so,  it  would  be  the 
strongest  argument  that  could  be  offered  against 
there  being  any  valid  basis  of  truth  or  any  moral 
purpose  in  the  universe.  The  delusion  is  born  of 
a  scepticism  that  is  thoroughly  atheistic.  Believe 
me,  the  highest  moral  truth  known  to  man  is  prac- 
ticable. If  it  is  not  practised,  the  fault  is  in 
human  character,  and  does  not  spring  from  any 
cause  in  the  nature  of  things.  And  what  better 
evidence  can  be  had  that  any  truth,  whether  of 
religion  or  of  science  or  of  ethics,  is  meant  for 
human  use  than  that  it  has  come  within  the  scope 
of  human  intelligence?  Or  what  better  intimation 
of  the  time  it  should  be  put  to  use  than  the  date  of 
its  discovery?  That,  at  least,  is  the  time  when  all 
w^ho  understand  and  acknowledge  it  should  begin 
eagerly  to  labor  for  its  supremacy,  content  no 
longer  that  any  error  or  half-truth  should  occupy 
its   place.      And  yet  people  parley,  defer,  compro- 


THE  SAVING  POWER  OF  TRUTH        301 

mise,  evade.  They  say,  in  effect :  "  Excuse  us,  O 
Lord,  but  this  truth  of  thine  comes  altogether  too 
soon  for  safety.  Next  year,  or  next  century,  the 
world  may  be  ready  for  it.  But  now  it  is  utterly 
impossible  to  get  it  established.  To  attempt  to 
disseminate  it  will  produce  only  a  vain  agitation 
and  bitterness.  Pray  take  it  back  to  thyself  again. 
Keep  it  hidden  till  a  more  auspicious  season,  and 
leave  us  for  the  present  harmonious  and  happy  in 
our  error."  But  to  such  timid  parleying  the  an- 
swer always  comes  back  from  the  Source  of  truth, 
"Now  is  the  acceptable  time,  now  is  the  day  of 
salvation."  And,  if  we  try  to  pass  this  reply  un- 
heeded and  still  put  aside  the  truth  that  is  knock- 
ing at  our  doors  for  admission,  then,  sooner  or 
later,  the  inevitable  stern  voice  of  retribution  will 
ring  through  the  chambers  of  conscience,  proclaim- 
ing "the  day  of  vengeance  of  our  God."  That  an- 
cient Scripture  still  has  a  meaning  for  mankind. 
It  means  the  dread  retribution  that  by  natural  law 
follows  the  fracture  of  righteousness.  Truth  can- 
not be  safely  tampered  with  nor  violated.     This  is 

« 

the  lesson  of  all  history,  the  lesson  of  individual 
life  and  of  every  nation's  annals. 

Nothing  can  be  more  fallacious  than  the  idea 
that  individual  character  ever  derives  any  greater 
efficiency  from  lowering  the  standard  of  truth  or 
virtue  to  make  them  more  practicable,  or  that  any 
half-way  rule  of  honesty  will  work  better  than  the 
perfect  rule.  You  will  see  men  enough,  it  is 
true,  —  there  are,   alas!  too  many  of    them, —  who 


302  THE    SAVING    POWER    OF    TRUTH 

have  attained  a  certain  outward  success,  a  certain 
measure  of  influence  and  power  perhaps,  through 
methods  of  concealment  and  trickery.  We  may 
sometimes  see  fortunes  accumulated  through  extor- 
tionate and  fraudulent  practices  in  trade;  vul- 
gar demagogism,  cunning,  and  hypocrisy  mount- 
ing to  places  of  high  trust  and  authority  in  the 
community;  selfish  ambition  riding  rough-shod 
over  the  unostentatious  merits  of  solid  wisdom 
and  moral  sincerity.  All  this  we  see;  and  a  hasty 
inference  might  be  that,  in  this  world,  hypocrisy 
succeeds  and  truthfulness  fails,  that  fraud  is  re- 
warded and  honesty  punished  quite  as  generally  as 
the  reverse.  But  it  would  most  certainly  be  a 
hasty  inference.  Look  through  a  lifetime,  look 
at  people  in  the  mass  and  in  the  long  run,  and  the 
rule  is  that  men  find  that  level  to  which  their  char- 
acters respectively  fit  them,  and  stand  in  the  com- 
munity for  what  they  really  are.  There  are  some 
exceptions  to  this  rule;  but  they  are  exceptions, 
and  do  not  make  the  standard.  They  are  enough 
to  suggest  that  this  life  may  not  complete  the 
moral  course,  that  there  is  somewhere  a  beyond  for 
rectifying  the  judgments  of  the  earthly  life.  Yet 
even  here,  in  general,  it  is  reality,  genuine  worth, 
that  reaches  the  highest  places  of  respect  and 
achieves  the  truest  success.  You  may  say  that 
here  is  a  man  who  lives  respected  in  the  commu- 
nity, though  on  ill-gotten  gains.  But  he  does  not 
have  your  respect.  He  does  not  have  the  respect 
of  any  one  in  the  community  who  knows  with  you 


THE  SAVING  POWER  OF  TRUTH        303 

of  his  dishonest  ways.  It  is  to  be  put  to  the  credit 
of  human  nature  that  no  compromise  of  personal 
integrity,  no  evasion  of  personal  truthfulness,  ever 
wins  regard  from  others  or  retains  power  over  them. 
Sooner  or  later  the  fraudulent  disguises  are  ex- 
posed. The  flimsy  veil  of  outward  respectability 
is  blown  away,  and  power  vanishes  with  it.  It  is 
only  truth,  reality,  that  ultimately  commands. 

And  what  is  true  of  individual  character  is  true, 
also,  of  communities,  of  nations.  No  community 
nor  nation  was  ever  made  strong  by  a  compro- 
mise of  justice.  Personal  and  sectional  interests, 
merely  outward  and  material  matters,  may  be  com- 
promised for  the  general  welfare;  but  the  right  and 
the  true  never.  The  majority  may  not  support  nor 
even  comprehend  the  highest  political  truth.  Let 
them,  then,  put  into  act  the  ideas  that  belong  to 
their  level  and  keep  the  responsibility  therefor; 
but  let  not  those  who  do  see  the  truth  that  is 
needed  yield  one  jot  or  tittle  of  it  because  it  cannot 
be  enacted  to-day.  If  they  cannot  be  legislators, 
let  them  be  prophets.  Stronger  was  Jesus  hanging 
upon  the  cross  than  Pilate,  at  the  command  of  the 
political  voices  of  the  day,  signing  his  death-war- 
rant. Stronger  is  the  man  or  the  party  that  stands 
for  the  truth,  though  in  a  minority  and  having  no 
official  power,  than  the  man  or  the  party  that  may 
possess  all  the  insignia  and  patronage  of  office, 
but  denying  the  truth.  Better  wait  a  whole  century 
than  help  to  enact  a  lie  or  even  a  half-truth,  if  the 
half-truth  can  only  be  obtained  by  a  compromise 


304        THE  SAVING  POWER  OF  TRUTH 

against  the  other  half.  The  proverb  sometimes 
preached  in  such  cases,  that  a  half-loaf  is  better 
than  no  bread,  does  not  apply  to  any  question 
where  the  point  yielded  is  a  point  of  morals.  For 
then  the  half  loaf  is  not  bread,  but  a  stone;  not 
food,  but  poison.  Every  national  compromise  of 
justice  legalizing  an  injustice  brings  the  inevitable 
retribution  of  corruption  and  disease  in  the  body 
politic,  which  only  the  bitter  discipline  of  suffer- 
ing can  expiate  and  cure. 

But,  having  spoken  with  somewhat  of  severity  of 
certain   tendencies   of  the  age,    I  forbear  to  close 
without  a  word  of  encouragement  and  hope.      For 
back  of  all  and  through  all  there  is  one  "stream  of 
tendency,"   which   is    never    to    be    forgotten,    and 
which  is  always  the  world's  strength  and  the  sure 
hope    of    mankind.      It    is  the  pressure,   from    the 
hidden  Source  of  all   sources,  Cause  of  all  causes, 
of  the  Absolute  Truth  itself  toward  the  realization 
of  its  own   ideals   in  human  character  and  society. 
Steadily,  firmly,  under  this   Divine  pressure  there 
come    solid    gains    for  man.     The    millennium    is 
still  far  away.     The  Elysian  fields  are  not  yet  in 
sight.    But,  even  in  our  own  time,  the  burdens  have 
been  somewhat  lifted  from  overburdened  shoulders. 
The  chains  of  oppression  have  been  loosened,  and 
some  of  them  broken  forever.      Miseries  have  been 
somewhat   assuaged.      Hope  and  honorable  aspira- 
tion have  been  stirred   in  hearts  that  never  knew 
them  before.      Knowledge,  culture,   and  refinement 
have  increased.     Justice  and  good  will  and  brother- 


THE    SAVING    POWER    OF    TRUTH  305 

hood  are  rising  to  higher  thrones  in  the  sover- 
eignty of  nations.  Thus  slowly,  but  surely,  do 
the  great  moral  ideas  and  purposes,  which  crown 
the  universe  with  a  fitting  noble  aim,  work  their 
way  into  the  heart  and  life  of  humanity.  The 
Power  in  the  world  that  makes  for  truth  and  right- 
eousness is  patient,  but  it  wins  at  last.  All  history 
substantiates  the  truth  that  there  is  a  Power  in  the 
world,  not  simply  above  it  or  outside  of  it,  but  in 
it,  that  is  reconciling  the  world  unto  itself,  bring- 
ing it  into  harmony  with  its  own  ideal  aims,  shap- 
ing and  fashioning  it  to  the  service  of  Truth,  Good- 
ness, and  Beauty.  Let  us  call  that  Power  our  God, 
God  with  us, —  God  working  in  man,  and  through 
him,  and  for  him. 

"  One  God,  one  law,  one  element, 

And  one  far-off  divine  event, 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 


THE   VOICE   OF   THE   DRAFT. 

"  Make  full  proof  of  thy  ministry." —  2  Tim.  iv.  5. 

The  subject  intended  for  to-day's  discourse,  my 
friends,  must  be  put  aside.  I  can  speak  to  you  only 
of  what  is  uppermost  in  my  thoughts,  especially  as, 
according  to  our  annual  custom,  this  is  the  last 
opportunity  I  shall  have  to  address  you  for  several 
weeks.  You  must  allow  me,  too,  to  speak  to  you 
familiarly,  very  much  as  I  would  talk  to  you 
individually  in  my  study.  I  have  no  carefully 
arranged  discourse,  neither  the  time  nor  my  tastes 
have  permitted  it.  But  the  thoughts  that  are  pass- 
ing through  my  mind,  and  in  just  the  shape  they 
pass,  since  they  may  ultimately  concern  you  in  the 
result  to  which  they  may  lead,  I  have  felt  that  you 
have  a  right  to  know. 

From  the  beginning  of  this  rebellion,  which  for 
more  than  two  years  has  shaken  and  devastated  our 
land,  I  have  been  preaching  to  you,  friends,  of  na- 
tional themes,  with  greater  frequency  than  some  of 
you,  perhaps,  have  thought  expedient,  and  not 
always  what  all  of  you  would  have  best  liked  to 
hear,  yet  always,  both  as  to  time  and  matter, 
according  to  my  own  solemn  convictions  of  duty; 
and  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  I  most  devoutly 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    DRAFT  30/ 

thank  you  to-day  for  the  very  general  welcome  you 
have  given  to  these  efforts,  and  still  more,  if  possi- 
ble, for  the  generous  liberty  you  have  accorded  me 
to  speak  my  thought,  even  though  you  might  not 
always  agree  with  it  when  spoken.  As  I  now  look 
back  upon  my  utterances  here  on  these  themes,  I 
have  no  misgivings,  save  that  I  have  done  so  little, 
and  done  so  poorly.  I  have  tried,  so  far  as  possi- 
ble in  the  small  range  of  my  ability,  to  bring  the 
support  of  this  pulpit  to  the  cause  of  our  country. 
I  have  endeavored  so  to  speak  as  to  excite  among 
you  and  in  this  community  a  patriotic  sentiment 
that  would  prepare  our  homes  for  sacrifices,  that 
would  help  fill  our  armies  in  the  field,  that  would 
inspire  men  and  women  with  a  desire  in  some  way 
to  serve  their  country,  and  that  would  aid  in  bring- 
ing the  moral  and  religious  strength  of  the  whole 
community  to  the  side  of  the  national  government 
in  this  struggle.  I  would  fain  have  filled  the 
breast  of  every  man  with  a  wish  to  give  himself  to 
this  holy  cause;  and  I  have  sought  so  to  speak  as 
to  induce  the  young  and  healthy  and  capacitated, 
not  only  to  have  the  wish,  but  honorably  to  gratify 
it  by  going  to  the  field.  I  have  spoken  of  the 
sublimity  of  self-sacrifice,  of  the  nobleness  of 
doing  and  dying  for  one's  country,  of  the  immortal 
glory  which  our  hero-soldiers,  living  or  dead,  are 
achieving  for  themselves  and  for  the  nation  which 
they  redeem.  I  have  thus  tried  to  make  it  easier 
for  parents  to  give  up  their  sons,  wives  their  hus- 
bands,   sisters  their  brothers,  and  all  of  us  those 


308  THE  VOICE  OF  THE  DRAFT 

whom  we  may  love  better  than  ourselves;  and  I 
have  striven  to  keep  up  among  us  at  home  a  spirit 
and  a  habit  of  charity  that  should  help  relieve  the 
sufferings  of  our  soldiers  in  the  hospital,  or  add  to 
their  strength  and  comfort  in  the  camp  and  on  the 
field.  I  have  endeavored,  moreover,  to  excite  not 
merely  a  patriotic  sentiment,  but  a  patriotic  senti- 
ment founded  on  a  sense  of  justice  and  a  reverent 
regard  for  human  rights.  Never  for  a  moment 
have  I  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that,  to  make  the  cause 
of  the  nation  a  holy  cause,  and  one  which  can  prop- 
erly receive  the  support  of  any  Christian  pulpit,  it 
must  be  the  cause  of  truth,  of  liberty,  of  humanity. 
I  have  sought,  therefore,  to  go  below  the  fact  of 
civil  war  to  its  causes :  I  have  endeavored  to  keep 
the  thought  clear  that,  by  this  rebellion,  truth  and 
liberty  and  humanity  were  assailed, —  the  very 
fundamental  principles  of  our  government, —  and 
that  it  is  only  as  we  go  to  the  defence  of  these,  and 
make  them  victorious  throughout  the  land,  that  any 
real  triumph  or  lasting  peace  can  be  secured  for 
our  country. 

I  speak  not  of  what  I  have  done, —  oh,  how  little 
is  that !  —  but  of  what  I  have  endeavored  to  do. 
And  even  that  is  not  much,  nothing  exceptional. 
It  is  only  what  almost  every  pulpit  in  the  loyal 
States  has  been  doing,  and  what  hundreds  of  men 
in  my  place  would  have  done  as  well  or  better;  and 
I  have  spoken  of  my  endeavors  now,  not  for  any 
merit  there  is  in  them,  but  simply  for  their  bearing 
on  what  follows.      I   have  merely  uttered  here  from 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    DRAFT  309 

time  to  time  what  was  in  my  heart,  and  so  uttered 
it,  I  trust,  that  the  voice  of  your  pulpit  has  given 
no  "uncertain  sound."  I  have  meant  only  to 
bring  the  whole  strength  of  this  desk  and  of  this 
church,  so  far  as  my  position  and  poor  abilities 
would  allow,  to  the  support  of  the  cause  of  our 
country  and  humanity. 

A  call  now  comes  to  me,  my  friends,  to  make 
other  proof  of  this  my  ministry  among  you.  I 
have  spoken  to  you  heretofore  by  words:  I  am  now 
called  to  speak  to  you  by  an  act.  I  am  bidden  to 
make  that  full  proof  of  the  sincerity  of  my  utter- 
ances which  only  deeds  can  give.  I  have  held  up 
before  you  the  beauty  and  the  sublimity  of  sacri- 
fice: I  am  now  asked  to  bring  my  sacrifice  to  the 
altar. 

This  call  does  not  come  to  me  unexpectedly;  nor 
do  I  answer  it  hastily,  or  in  any  narrow  enthusiasm 
of  the  moment  which  shuts  out  a  view  of  the  many 
collateral  questions  and  consequences  it  involves. 
I  see  all,  and  on  all  sides,  just,  I  think,  as  you 
see,  and  more  than  any  of  you  can  see.  Long 
foreseeing  the  probability  of  the  call,  my  mind  has 
been  silently,  and  with  full  deliberation,  preparing 
its  answer;  and,  so  seeing  and  so  judging,  there  is 
but  one  course  that  conscience  opens  to  me.  My 
friends,  this  call  is  imperative:   I  must  obey. 

I  would  not  make  the  matter  too  serious.  There 
may  be  little  service  or  sacrifice  required, —  per- 
haps the  showing  a  readiness  to  obey  will  be  all ; 
and  I  am  glad  to  see  that  the  result  of  the  military 


310  THE  VOICE  OF  THE  DRAFT 

draft  is  accepted  in  this  community  with  such 
cheerfulness.  Still,  I  wish  there  were  a  deeper 
feeling  of  seriousness  beneath  this  good,  but  almost 
too  jocose,  cheer.  Probably  there  is  more  than 
there  seems.  But  I  wish  that  our  obligation  to  our 
country  was  more  sacredly  considered  and  revered, 
and  that  the  whole  question  was  decided  more  in 
the  light  of  solemn  duty.  I  wish  that  those  whose 
names  have  been  drawn  were  asking  rather  if  they 
cannot  go  than  seeking  reasons  for  staying  at 
home.  There  ought  to  be  such  a  sentiment  of 
patriotism  in  the  community  that  the  presumption 
would  be  that  every  drafted  man  would  go,  whereas 
the  presumption  now  seems  to  be  that  he  will  stay 
at  home  if  he  can,  and  go  only  if  he  is  obliged  to. 
I  should  count  it  a  much  higher  testimony  to  my 
own  character  and  the  value  of  my  past  preaching, 
if  I  were  met  with  the  remark,  "Of  course,  you  will 
go,  if  you  are  allowed,"  than  to  be  addressed,  as  I 
more  frequently  have  been,  "Of  course,  you  will 
not  think  of  going." 

I  assure  you,  my  friends,  I  can  think  of  nothing 
else.  My  words  to  you  with  regard  to  our  duties 
to  our  country  have  expressed  my  sincere  convic- 
tions. I  have  preached  what  I  believed,  and  I  still 
believe  as  I  have  preached,  and  what  I  have 
preached  to  others  I  have  meant  also  for  myself; 
and  I  could  never  come  into  this  pulpit  and  utter 
again  such  words  as  I  have  spoken  here  —  for  they 
would  then  seem  to  me  mere  empty  breath  —  unless 
I  obey,  so  far  as  I  have  the  capacity,  this  call. 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    DRAFT  3II 

I  do  not  know  as  I  shall  be  pronounced  physi- 
cally worthy  for  the  service  into  which  the  lot 
would  take  me,  though  I  am  aware  of  no  defect 
that  would  legally  exempt  me,  and  sincerely  hope 
that  none  may  be  found.  I  only  wish  this  matter 
were  beyond  doubt.  I  have  wanted  since  last 
Thursday,  as  never  before,  strength  of  body,  and 
shall  regard  it  with  profound  mortification  if  I 
shall  be  declared  physically  disabled  for  meeting 
this  demand  which  my  country  makes  upon  me.  I 
cannot  at  all  understand  the  feeling  which  prompts 
so  many  men  to  search  their  bodies  for  some  weak- 
ness or  disease  whereby  they  can  escape  this  ser- 
vice to  their  country.  I  know  very  well  that  one 
physically  incapacitated  should  not  go  as  a  soldier, 
and  that  patriotism  sometimes  may  require  that 
one  abstain  from  going  rather  than  to  go  and  be- 
come a  burden  to  the  service.  But  how  any  one 
can  exult  if  such  incapacity  be  discovered  in  him- 
self is  what  I  cannot  comprehend.  Aside  from  the 
mean  and  craven  nature  of  such  a  sentiment,  a 
proper  pride  in  the  possession  of  a  sound  body 
should  keep  one  from  grovelling  so  low.  How 
much  nobler  is  the  spirit  of  the  drafted  sailor,  who, 
already  in  the  sea  service  of  the  government,  came 
before  the  examining  board  the  other  day  with  a 
certificate  from  some  local  physician,  trumped  up 
for  him,  probably,  by  his  home  friends,  stating 
that  he  had  an  internal  organic  disease,  but  who, 
when  the  board  found  no  disease,  but,  on  the 
contrary,   pronounced    him    a    sound   and  perfectly 


312  THE  VOICE  OF  THE  DRAFT 

healthy  man,  exclaimed  with  exultation:  "Good I 
But  I  shall  go  back  to  the  service  in  which  I  now 
am,  for  I  can  serve  better  there ;  so  here  are  my 
three  hundred  dollars,  which  I  willingly  pay  for 
the  sake  of  going  back  knowing  that  I  am  a  sound 
man!"  Young  men,  if  your  mothers  should  be  as- 
sailed, would  you  exult  because  you  were  feeble- 
bodied,  and  could  not  go  to  their  defence?  Our 
country  is  our  mother;  and  shall  we  not  pray  for 
strong  arms,  in  this  her  hour  of  peril,  to  defend 
her?  I  decide  not  for  others;  but  for  one  I  do 
so  pray  continually,  and  I  shall  use  all  possible 
means,  between  this  day  and  the  day  of  examina- 
tion a  month  hence,  to  make  myself  physically 
worthy  to  answer  her  call.  And,  if  accepted,  I 
must  go, —  go  wherever  and  in  whatever  capacity 
the  legally  constituted  authorities  may  place  me, 
seeking  for  myself  nothing  that  is  not  .equally  open 
to  all,  only  trusting  that,  if  there  be  any  kind  of 
service  in  which  I  may  be  more  useful  than  an- 
other, it  will  in  providential  ways  come  to  me. 
And,  if  not  accepted,  if  I  shall  be  doomed  to 
the  mortification  of  physical  unworthiness,  I  shall 
still  feel  that  this  call  is  a  new  voice  of  duty 
which  I  must  in  some  way  try  to  obey.  In  what 
shape  I  can  respond  to  the  demand  T  know  not 
now;  but  I  have  for  some  time  felt  that  I  must  get 
nearer  to  the  heart  of  this  national  struggle,  that  I 
must  enter  more  interiorly  into  the  life  of  this 
hour  of  our  national  history,  that  I  have  done  what 
I   could  by  word,  and  must  now  make  some  fuller 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    DRAFT  313 

and  more  personal  proof  of  my  ministry  in  this 
regard.  And  this  call  from  the  conscription  wheel 
I  accept  as  an  intimation  that  another  field  of  duty 
may  be  somewhere  opening  for  me. 

You  say  it  is  all  accident,  that  the  turn  of  a 
hair's  breadth  more  might  have  drawn  the  next 
name  instead  of  mine.  True;  and  yet  no  accident 
happens  to  us  which  does  not  bring  for  us,  if  we 
listen,  a  divine  message.  And  this  is  the  message 
that  this  so-called  accident  brings  to  me:  "Make 
full  proof  of  thy  ministry."  I  have  spoken  to  you 
so  much  by  words  that  I  feel  that  my  words  have 
lost  their  power,  —  at  least  that  my  absence,  in 
some  service  to  which  the  nation  calls,  would  now 
speak  more  forcibly  than  my  presence  for  the 
truths  which   I  have  endeavored  to  uphold. 

I  know  what  may  be  rising  in  your  hearts  to  be 
uttered,  and  what  many  have  already  said  to  me, — 
that  there  is  a  certain  fitness  of  abilities  to  be  con- 
sidered, and  that  I  can  do  better  service  here  than 
in  any  other  position,  particularly  in  a  military 
position.  I  accept  gratefully  this  evidence  of  your 
favor  and  regard,  and  readily  acknowledge  that 
considerations  of  this  kind  are  to  receive  attention. 
But  we  must  be  careful  not  to  allow  them  too  much 
weight.  So  long  as  the  question  was  concerning 
the  raising  of  a  volunteer  army,  I  have  not  felt 
called  to  any  kind  of  military  service.  Neither  by 
temperament,  education,  nor  tastes,  have  I  any  spe- 
cial qualifications  for  it.  I  could  consistently  en- 
courage   those  who    had    the    qualifications  to    go. 


314  THE    VOICE    OF    THE    DRAFT 

while  at  the  same  time  I  felt  that  I  could  remain 
with  greater  usefulness  at  my  present  post.  But 
the  question  is  now  changed.  The  conscription 
law  has  put  an  end,  in  great  measure,  to  these 
considerations  of  fitness,  as  also  to  those  of  conven- 
ience. It  is  to  be  presumed  that  two  years'  oppor- 
tunity for  volunteering  has  taken  all  those  into 
military  service  who  have  any  special  liking  or 
adaptedness  for  it,  or  who  could  leave  home  and 
business  with  ease.  Whatever  the  fact  may  be, 
the  presumption  on  which  we  must  act  is  that  it  is 
now  an  even  matter  who  shall  go  to  make  up  this 
new  army;  and  for  this  reason  we  have  drawn  lots 
to  decide  the  question. 

I  say  we  have  drawn  lots, —  we,  the  people,  have 
done  it.  It  has  not  been  done  for  us  or  over  us  by 
any  despotic  authority,  but  it  is  our  act  done  at  our 
demand.  And  this  leads  me  to  say  the  word  which 
I  wish  to  say  on  the  Conscription  Act. 

The  conscription  law  is  our  law,  the  people's 
law.  It  was  passed  by  the  legal  representatives  of 
the  people,  and  at  the  demand  of  the  people.  The 
people  said  to  the  government:  "All  have  volun- 
teered who  have  any  special  fitness  for  war  or  who 
can  go  with  convenience  to  themselves  or  to  their 
families  or  to  society.  It  is  now  as  difficult  for 
one  man  to  go  as  another:  we  will  draw  lots  to 
determine  who  shall  go."  And  the  government  has 
accordingly  put  our  names  into  the  wheel,  and  the 
fates,  at  our  command,  are  turning  it:  shall  we  not 
abide  by  the  lot? 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    DRAFT  315 

If  any  think  that  I  have  put  the  point  too 
strongly,  that  the  draft  is  the  act  of  the  people, 
let  them  call  to  mind  the  fact  that  a  little  more 
than  a  year  ago  there  was  a  general  call  through 
the  newspapers  of  all  parties  in  the  loyal  States, 
and  through  the  popular  voice  as  expressed  in 
private  and  in  public,  for  taxation  and  a  draft, 
—  a  fact  which  will  ever  be  remembered  to  the 
honor  of  republican  institutions  and  of  the  Ameri- 
can people.  And,  if  any,  having  in  mind  the 
troubles  incident  to  the  draft,  now  think  that  an- 
other army  might  have  been  raised  by  volunteers, 
let  them  remember  the  troubles  and  disgust  which 
a  year  ago  attended  the  volunteering  system. 

But,  whether  an  army  of  volunteers  could  have 
been  raised  or  not,  is  a  question  that  can  no  longer 
be  discussed.  We  have  decided  for  conscription, 
the  people  asked  for  it:  the  government  through 
the  people's  representatives  have  given  it,  and 
given  it  in  the  form  of  a  law  of  which  humaneness 
is  the  characteristic  picture.  The  exemptions 
which  the  law  makes  are  none  of  them  on  the 
ground  of  class,  or  profession,  or  wealth,  but  all  on 
the  ground  of  humanity.  I  venture  to  say  that, 
except,  perhaps,  in  some  points  of  practical  detail 
(and  these  are  receiving  a  liberal  interpretation), 
a  conscription  law  could  not  be  framed,  wiser  or 
more  compassionate.  Imagine  what  hardships  and 
opposition  there  would  have  been,  had  the  law 
given  no  alternative  but  going  to  the  field.  Even 
the    three     hundred    dollars    commutation    money, 


3l6  THE    VOICE    OF    THE    DRAFT 

which  has  been  the  chief  cause  of  complaint,  was 
put  in  from  regard,  not  to  the  rich,  but  to  laboring 
men  and  men  of  moderate  means,  in  order  to  keep 
the  price  of  substitutes  within  the  reach  of  most 
men  of  honest  industry.  There  will  doubtless  be 
cases  of  hardship  under  the  law,  but  so  there  have 
been  under  the  system  of  volunteering:  the  hard- 
ships do  not  grow  out  of  the  fact  of  conscription, 
but  out  of  the  fact  of  war.  The  law  could  not  at- 
tend to  such  cases;  but  private  charity  can  and 
should,  and  doubtless  will.  The  law,  I  believe,  in 
its  main  features,  is  as  good  a  one  as  could  be 
drawn;  and,  had  it  not  been  for  a  few  political 
demagogues  with  hearts  so  bad  that  they  would  ruin 
their  country  for  the  sake  of  party,  there  would 
have  been  no  outbreak  of  hostility  to   it. 

Regarding,  then,  the  draft  as  the  act  of  the 
people  drawing  lots  among  themselves,  the  people 
of  course  will  honorably  abide  by  it.  Still  to 
those  who  are  drawn  a  choice  is  left,  and  how  shall 
this  choice  be  made?  It  is  not,  most  certainly,  to 
be  taken  for  granted  that  all  whose  names  are 
drawn  should  enter  the  service.     The  feeble-bodied 

—  wretched  men  they  should  consider  themselves 

—  are  exempted  by  the  law  itself.  Only  those 
who  are  pronounced  physically  fit  will  have  the 
question  to  decide  what  they  are  to  do.  And  this 
question  we  cannot  decide  for  one  another.  We 
may  present  motives  that  will  help  to  a  decision; 
but,  in  the  end,  each  must  decide  for  himself, — 
decide  solemnly,  and  under  a  full  sense  of  his  obli- 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    DRAFT  317 

gation  to  his  country  and  to   God.      Yet  there   is 
one    question  which    all    whose  names    have    been 
drawn  must  alike  ask,  if  they  mean  to  abide  honor- 
ably by  the   lot;   and  this   question  is,  How — -that 
is,    by  accepting   which    of    the   three  alternatives 
presented  —  can    I    best    serve    my    country?    not, 
How  can   I  best  serve  myself,  my  family,  my  busi- 
ness? but,  How  can   I  best  serve  my  country?     I 
can    conceive,    indeed,    that     there    may    be    cases 
where  men  who  have  no  special  fitness  for  military 
service,  but  do  have  a  very  special   usefulness   in 
other  work,  can  best  serve  their  country,  even   in 
this  crisis,  by  paying  their  commutation  money  or 
sending  substitutes,  and   remaining  themselves   in 
their  business  to  keep  that  in  operation.      So,  too, 
there    are    doubtless    strong    exceptional    cases    of 
domestic    obligation,    where,    fully    in    accordance 
with  the  spirit  of  the   law,  one  would  be  released 
from    the  choice  of    personal    service.      Let    every 
one,  however,  if  he  would  keep  his  honor,  be  on 
his  guard   against   the   specious   forms  which   this 
exceptive  pleading  may  assume.      He  must   decide 
unselfishly,    patriotically,    conscientiously,    putting 
foremost,  not  the  grounds  for  staying  at  home,  but 
the  grounds  for  going. 

It  is  quite  commonly  said,  I  know  (and  such  a 
report  I  now  see  is  in  the  newspapers),  that  the 
commutation  fee,  by  which  a  veteran  volunteer  may 
be  procured,  is  more  acceptable  to  the  government 
than  a  raw  recruit.  If  the  government  should 
make  an  authoritative  statement  to  this  effect,  it 


3l8  THE    VOICE    OF    THE    DRAFT 

would  decide  the  question  for  many  of  us.  But  no 
such  statement  has  yet  been  made;  and,  until  it  is 
made  on  official  authority,  the  presumption  is  that, 
since  the  law  was  made  for  raising  an  army,  the 
men  are  wanted  more  than  the  money. 

Again,  it  is  urged  that  one  of  no  special  fitness 
by  nature  or  education  for  military  duty  can  best 
serve  the  country  by  sending  a  substitute  who  is 
fit;  and  thereby  he  may  actually  show  a  higher 
patriotism  than  if  he  should  go  himself.  There  is 
truth  in  this  argument  as  a  theoretical  proposition, 
and  at  one  time  I  gave  it  great  weight  in  my  own 
case.  But  practically  there  is  a  very  dangerous 
fallacy  in  it,  and  the  fallacy  lies  in  our  not  consid- 
ering sufficiently  the  qualities  that  must  make  fit- 
ness in  the  substitute;  for  fitness  consists  by  no 
means  solely  in  the  possession  of  muscle  or  in  bel- 
ligerent training.  I  might  send  many  men  in  my 
stead  who  have  stronger  bodies  and  are  better 
fighters;  but  no  man  could  be  my  substitute  who 
does  not  believe  in  the  justice  of  our  cause  as  thor- 
oughly as  I  do.  No  man  could  be  my  substitute 
who  does  not,  by  birth  or  adoption  or  principle, 
feel  a  personal  interest  in  the  triumph  of  our  cause 
and  the  salvation  of  the  country.  No  man  could 
be  my  substitute  who  would  fight  merely  for  pay, 
or  who  would  fight  on  the  other  side  at  any  price. 
For  one  to  be  my  substitute  in  this  struggle  he 
must  have  some  other  allegiance  to  our  cause  than 
an  allegiance  that  is  bought:  he  must  believe  in  it. 
He  cannot  be  a  good  and  true  soldier  without  be- 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    DRAFT  319 

lief.  But  the  substitutes  that  are  procurable  and 
that  are  being  accepted  are  most  of  a  very  differ- 
ent sort  from  this.  They  are  Canadians,  or  aliens 
just  from  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  They 
have  no  intelligent  appreciation  of  our  struggle 
or  our  institutions.  They  come  only  for  money. 
They  would  serve  just  as  readily,  many  of  them 
more  readily,  on  the  side  of  the  rebels;  and  they 
will  ^desert  at  the  first  opportunity,  or,  guarded 
against  that,  are,  at  least,  very  likely  to  prove 
faithless  in  battle. 

[Since  the  above  words  were  spoken,  we  have 
had  a  practical  proof  in  this  city  of  their  truth.  I 
ask  you,  young  men,  and  brother-conscripts,  —  you 
who  mean  to  be  true  sons  of  your  country  and  do 
your  whole  duty  to  her  and  answer  honorably  her 
call  for  help, —  Is  it  such  creatures  as  fled  the  other 
night  from  Pierian  Hall  that  you  are  willing  to 
send  in  your  stead  to  the  defence  of  your  mother, 
the  country?  Can  you,  without  a  blush  of  honest 
shame,  call  such  men — swindlers,  perjurers,  run- 
aways—  your  substitutes?  Are  you  ready  to  have 
your  patriotism  measured  by  their  character,  and  to 
own  that  men  who  can  only  be  kept  for  the  service 
by  being  guarded  in  jail  can  do  your  work  in  this 
holy  cause?  ] 

There  are  some  reasons  of  feeling,  which,  with 
many  persons,  are  conclusive  against  a  substitute 
in  their  own  case;  but  these,  since  they  are  reasons 
of  feeling,  and  therefore  not  of  general  application, 
I  do  not  here  consider.      But  this  point  which   I 


320  THE    VOICE    OF    THE    DRAFT 

have  considered  —  the  danger  there  is  of  putting 
into  our  armies,  through  the  practice  of  procuring 
substitutes,  a  large  class  of  men  who  have  no  zeal 
nor  faith  in  our  cause  —  presents  to  every  drafted 
man,  and  to  the  whole  community,  an  argument 
that  should  receive  the  most  weighty  and  serious 
attention.  Besides,  leaving  out  of  view  the  danger 
of  bad  faith  on  the  part  of  the  substitutes  that  are 
generally  procurable,  there  ought,  I  think,  to  be 
some  patriotic  pride  in  this  matter.  Is  it  possible 
that,  with  the  large  population  there  is  in  the 
loyal  States  of  the  requisite  age,  still  untouched, 
the  country  cannot  raise  another  army  of  its  own 
citizens  to  go  to  its  defence?  Are  we  so  degener- 
ate that  we  cannot  close  this  war,  and  save  our 
country  and  its  cherished  principles  without  calling 
in  to  our  aid  an  army  of  foreign  mercenaries? 

But  let  me  conclude  by  giving  briefly  the  three 
positive  considerations  which,  in  addition  to  the 
more  personal  reasons  I  have  expressed,  have  out- 
weighed all  objections  in  my  own  case,  and 
brought  me  to  the  decision  that  I  have  made;  and 
they  are  considerations  which,  in  my  opinion, 
should  have  general  regard.  First,  the  value  of 
the  moral  element  in  an  army  is  to  be  considered, 
and  alongside  of  this  the  moral  effect  of  men  leav- 
ing positions  of  usefulness  and  comfort  and  honor 
to  enter  the  army.  If  our  cause  is  the  just  and 
sacred  cause  that  most  of  us  believe  it  to  be,  then 
no  man  among  us  is  too  good  or  stands  in  too  high 
a  position  to  give  himself  to  it,  or  for  it,  in  what- 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    DRAFT  32I 

ever  way  the  country  may  call  for  his  services. 
And  the  better  and  more  enlightened  the  men  are 
who  go  to  make  up  the  army,  the  purer  and  higher 
becomes  the  cause,  and  the  more  it  becomes  linked 
with  the  truest  and  holiest  interests  of  the  country, 
and  the  more  elevated  and  earnest  becomes  the  pa- 
triotism of  the  country.  Moreover,  this  war  has 
proved,  if  it  was  not  proved  before,  that  it  is  not 
bad  men,  or  rough  men,  or  always  men  of  the 
stoutest  bodies,  that  make  the  best  soldiers,  but 
that  character,  earnestess,  faith,  serve  in  an  army 
as  everywhere  else.  Not  the  low  population  of 
our  cities,  brought  up  to  fighting,  but  youths  deli- 
cately nurtured  in  wealthy  and  refined  homes,  and 
polished  with  the  culture  of  colleges,  have  done 
some  of  the  best  service  as  soldiers  in  this  war. 
Other  things  being  equal,  the  truer  a  man  is  in 
character,  the  better  soldier  will  he  make.  And, 
when  other  things  are  not  equal,  solidity  of  char- 
acter and  a  heart  in  the  cause  will  often  more  than 
make  up  for  deficiency  of  bodily  strength. 

Secondly,  men  who  might  choose  the  alternative 
of  staying  at  home  ought  to  consider  their  duties 
toward  those  who,  on  account  of  their  circum- 
stances, must  accept  the  alternative  of  going. 
The  great  complaint  against  the  draft  has  been  that 
the  rich  and  cultivated  —  those  who  can  easily  com- 
mand three  hundred  dollars  —  would  remain  at 
home,  while  the  poorer  class  would  be  obliged  to 
go.  Now  every  one,  if  possible,  ought  to  act  so 
that  there  shall  be  left  no  show  of  justice  in  this 


322  THE    VOICE    OF    THE    DRAFT 

complaint.  Every  drafted  man  who  is  not  kept  at 
home  by  very  important  considerations,  every  one 
who  might  stay  at  home,  but  can  go,  ought  to  go 
for  this  reason,  if  no  other, —  the  encouragement 
and  support  of  those  who  must  go.  Let  it  be  seen 
that  this  draft  is  a  fair  thing,  and  that  we  mean  to 
abide  by  it  fairly,  and  that  it  is  a  democratic 
thing,  —  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  educated  and 
the  uneducated,  the  man  who  labors  with  his  hands 
and  the  man  who  labors  with  his  brains,  as  they 
all  have  an  equal  interest  in  the  country's  preserva- 
tion, so  all  standing  side  by  side  and  shoulder  to 
shoulder  in  its  defence. 

Thirdly  and  finally,  —  and  in  some  respects  the 
most  important  consideration  of  all, —  what  is  most 
needed  now  for  putting  an  effectual  end  to  this  re- 
bellion, with  all  its  causes  and  consequences,  is  a 
general  uprising  of  the  people  to  the  support  of  the 
government,  to  the  support  of  it  against  not  only 
rebellion  in  the  South,  but  against  secret  treason 
and  open  violence  at  home.  Let  the  people  of  all 
classes  not  merely  show  submission,  but  respond 
with  cheerful  alacrity  to  this  draft,  each  one  going 
to  his  place  in  the  army  as  to  a  post  of  solemn 
duty,  and  not  only  would  the  war  soon  come  to  an 
end,  but  the  stability  of  republican  institutions 
would  be  insured  forever.  The  spectacle  of  a  great 
people,  including  all  classes,  thus  rising  cheerfully 
and  harmoniously  together  to  meet  the  demands  of 
a  draft,  saying  to  one  another,  "Our  sons  and 
brothers  who  could  volunteer   in   this    holy    cause 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    DRAFT  323 

have  gone,  and  we  have  now  cast  lots  to  see  who 
shall  go  to  stand  by  their  sides  or  to  defend  their 
graves;  and  we,  to  whom  the  lots  have  fallen,  now 
come  ready  in  hand  and  heart  for  the  service  to 
which  our  country  calls  us," — such  a  spectacle 
would  be  a  grander  exhibition  than  was  that  first 
uprising  of  the  people  at  the  outset  of  the  war; 
and  an  army  so  formed  would  be  nobler  in  its  in- 
vincible determination  than  even  an  army  of  volun- 
teers. God  grant  that  I  may  be  one  in  such  an 
army!  God  grant,  and  the  patriotic  hearts  of  this 
community  grant,  that  there  may  be  many  to  stand 
with  me!  Could  such  an  army  spring  up,  I  doubt 
if  it  would  even  have  to  march  out  of  the  loyal 
States,  for  it  would  be  recognized  as  the  army  of 
the  invincible  fates,  as  the  hosts  of  Heaven's  re- 
tributive justice;  and  rebellion,  violence,  treason, 
oppression,  lawless  rage,  and  every  foul  wrong  of 
war  that  now  devastates  our  land,  would  shrink 
from  before  it  into  the  darkness  of  annihilation, 
and  law,  liberty,  and  peace  would  be  established  in 
triumph  and  forever  over  a  reunited  country. 


THE    DRAMATIC    ELEMENT    IN    THE 
CAREER    OF   ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 

"  For  where  a  testament  is,  there  must  also  of  necessity  be  the 
death  of  the  testator;  for  a  testament  is  of  force  after  men  are 
dead." — Heb.  ix.  i6,  17. 

It  is  sweet  to  linger  in  the  fragrance  of  a  good 
man's  memory.  The  part  that  Abraham  Lincoln 
has  acted  in  our  history  can  never  become  old  or 
worn.  It  is  a  career  upon  which  historians  will 
ever  love  to  dwell,  and  which  will  never  lose  its 
charm  for  the  people.  And,  after  all  that  has  been 
spoken  and  written  concerning  him,  there  is  yet 
one  phase  of  his  wonderful  life  and  tragic  destiny 
which  has  great  attractiveness,  and  which  I  have 
hinted  at  once  or  twice  in  previous  discourses,  but 
which,  so  far  as  I  have  seen,  has  not  anywhere 
been  fully  developed  or  much  noticed.  Mr.  Sum- 
ner, in  his  eulogy  just  spoken,  touches  more 
closely  upon  what  I  refer  to  than  any  other  writer 
or  speaker  whose  words  have  come  to  my  eye;  but 
the  object  he  had  proposed  to  himself  did  not  allow 
him  to  more  than  skirt  the  border  of  this  phase  of 
the  great  theme. 

The  point  of  view  that  I  have  in  mind  is  the 
perfect  dramatic  unity  and  progress  of  Abraham 
Lincoln's  life, —  the  wonderful   line  of  destiny,  or 


THE    CAREER    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  325 

of  providence,  by  which  his  career,  from  his  birth 
to  his  death,  was  unfolded,  in  all  its  parts  and 
acts  and  through  all  its  shiftings  of  place  and 
scene  and  time,  on  the  thread  of  a  single  vital 
truth  and  to  a  single  moral  end.  This  life  moves 
across  the  stage  of  history  with  the  dramatic  march 
of  one  of  Homer's  heroes.  The  stern  demands  of 
ancient  Grecian  tragedy  were  not  more  observed  by 
its  great  artists  in  their  greatest  works  than  they 
have  been  observed  in  the  actual  life  of  this  Amer- 
ican President.  Here  must  be  no  side  issues,  no 
confounding  of  moral  lessons,  no  division  and  dis- 
traction of  one  prevailing  moral  purpose  and  force, 
no  departure,  amid  whatever  private  or  professional 
or  domestic  episodes  or  whatever  change  and  va- 
riety of  action,  from  the  one  truth  which  this  indi- 
vidual career  from  its  outset  was  chosen  to  embody 
and  to  teach  for  humanity.  From  its  entrance  on 
the  stage  of  earthly  being  to  its  exit,  this  life  must 
be  moved  by  one  inexorable  purpose  and  will,  and 
march  to  one  inevitable  fate,  in  order  to  print 
upon  the  heart  of  the  world  one  of  the  grandest 
truths  of  human  civilization  and  government  and 
progress. 

This  is  our  theme.  But  why  bring  it  here,  and 
make  it  a  subject  of  religious  meditation?  It  may 
belong  to  the  dramatist  and  the  poet,  it  may  serve 
the  uses  of  the  lecture-room  and  the  magazine,  but 
why  bring  it  to  the  church  ?  Because,  first,  there 
is  a  providence  behind  the  scenes,  the  hidden  infi- 
nite  manager   of  the   great   drama.      The   ancients 


326         THE  DRAMATIC  ELEMENT  IN 

called  it  fate,  destiny:  we  call  it  Providence,  God, 
the  Infinite  Spirit.  Abraham  Lincoln,  though  self- 
possessed  to  an  extraordinary  degree,  though  having 
great  independence  and  originality  of  being  and  na- 
tive resources  and  capacities  very  largely  at  his 
command,  was  yet  impelled,  as  few  men  have  been, 
by  a  power  beyond  his  own,  possessed,  used,  chosen 
for  a  special  work  by  a  spirit  above  himself.  And, 
secondly,  I  bring  the  theme  here  because  of  the 
grand  moral  importance  to  humanity  of  the  truth 
which  his  life  was  selected  thus  dramatically  to 
unfold  and  teach. 

And  what  is  this  truth?  It  is  the  truth  of 
republican  freedom,  simplicity,  and  equality, —  in 
one  word,  the  truth  of  democracy,  as  theoretically 
stated  by  Jefferson  in  the  opening  sentences  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  By  the  strict  line 
of  this  truth,  the  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  act  by 
act  and  scene  by  scene,  was  developed,  from  the 
day  his  eyes  first  saw  the  light  in  a  log  cabin  on 
the  Western  frontier  of  civilization  to  the  day 
when,  as  President  of  the  United  States,  standing 
at  the  very  topmost  height  of  official  position  and 
honor,  he  was  slain  by  the  hand  of  an  assassin,  and 
those  eyes  closed  forever  to  mortal  things.  To 
this  truth  he  was  born;  to  it  he  was  apprenticed 
by  the  necessary  conditions  of  his  lot,  during  all 
the  years  of  his  boyhood  and  youth.  At  manhood 
it  became  his  property  purchased  by  conviction ; 
it  stamped  henceforward  his  whole  character,  and 
all   his   personal,    social,    and   professional    habits. 


THE    CAREER    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  327 

When  he  was  called  into  political  life,  this  was  at 
once  his  creed  and  the  central  principle  of  all  his 
measures  and  acts;  and,  when  this  truth  was  chal- 
lenged and  defied  by  rebellion  to  the  government 
founded  upon  it,  then  he,  seemingly  by  accident, 
yet  inevitably,  became  the  leader  of  the  loyal  hosts 
in  the  fierce  struggle  with  despotism  and  slavery, 
led  them  to  triumph,  and,  in  the  hour  of  triumph, 
fell, —  fell  that  he  might  have  the  greater  triumph, 
as  the  Greek  tragedians  made  their  heroes  fall  in 
order  that  they  might  ascend  to  Olympus  and  to 
the  society  of  the  gods,  fell  that  he  might  seal  his 
testament  to  this  truth  of  republican  freedom, 
simplicity,  and  equality,  with  his  blood,  and  sanc- 
tify it  henceforth  as  the  solemnly  established  pol- 
ity of  the  nation.  Is  not  here  a  life-drama  such  as 
is  seldom  enacted  on  this  earth? 

But  let  us  bring  out  some  of  its  features  in 
fuller  relief.  Let  us  see  how,  in  every  part  of 
its  course,  this  career  is  vitalized,  and  its  direc- 
tion and  progress  determined  by  the  truth  I  have 
stated, —  see  how  close  the  hidden,  inimitable  Art- 
ist ever  holds  it  to  the  one  purposed  aim,  how 
statelily  and  solemnly  it  advances,  by  steps  that 
seem  almost  to  know  whither  they  tend,  to  the 
inevitable  tragic  end. 

The  drama  opens  in  the  rudest  and  humblest 
condition  of  democratic  life,  the  farthest  possible 
removed  from  wealth  and  culture,  and  from  any  in- 
fluences that  may  have  been  transmitted  across  the 
seas  from  the  forms  and  refinements  of  monarchical 


328         THE  DRAMATIC  ELEMENT  IN 

civilization.      Not  amid  the  schools  and  cities  and 
growing  luxuries  of  the  East,  but  in  the  far  West, 
where    nothing    is    yet    established    but    the    pure 
democratic   idea,  must  the  hero  be  born  who  is  to 
testify  for   that    idea    through    life  and    by  death. 
He  must  be  born   of  nothing  but  pure  democracy. 
The   world    must   see   that    this  future   republican 
ruler    owed    nothing    by    birth   save   to   republican 
freedom,    simplicity,    and    equality.     Therefore  he 
is  born  in  a  hut  without  floor,  with  but  one  room, 
with  no  articles  of   luxury,  with  very  few  even  of 
comfort  or  necessity,  born  to  toil  and  poverty,  born 
of    parents    having    no    lineage,    no    learning,    no 
library,  having  nothing  but  a  little  spot  of  soil  and 
a  rough  shelter  over  their  heads  and  honest   hearts 
and   hard-working  hands.      Yet,    according    to    the 
theory  of  the  country  written  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,    and    partially    established     by    the 
Revolution,  those  parents  are  a  part  of  the  sover- 
eignty of  the   land;  and  from  their  loins  must   be 
born  the  strong  man  who  is  to  be  leader  and  ruler 
of    the  nation    through    the    severest    contest    that 
democracy  has  ever  known,  and  who  is  to  testify  to 
all  history  and  throughout  all  time  for  the  truth  of 
the  democratic  idea. 

But  the  contest  against  democracy  has  already 
begun.  There  is  an  institution  in  the  land  that 
flagrantly  denies  its  most  fundamental  principles, 
—  an  institution  of  caste,  inequality,  oppression, 
and  despotism.  This  institution  has  spread  out  to 
the  frontier  settlements.      It  is  closing  around  that 


THE    CAREER    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  329 

democratic  hut,  menacing  its  prosperity,  its  virtue, 
and  the  precious  promise  it  holds.  Slavery  joins 
issue  with  the  democratic  idea  in  Kentucky,  and 
threatens  utterly  to  overwhelm  it.  But  the  times 
are  not  yet  ripe  for  the  great  struggle:  the  hero  is 
still  a  boy;  the  strength  and  integrity  that  his 
honest  parentage  and  home  have  given  him  must 
be  saved  from  contamination.  The  drama  is  just 
beginning.  Not  prematurely  must  the  crisis  be 
developed.  The  parents,  indeed,  do  not  thus  rea- 
son with  conscious  reference  to  the  future;  but  the 
genius  of  the  republic  is  jealously  guarding  its 
hero.  The  prophetic  Spirit  of  Truth,  sitting  calm 
behind  the  scenes,  will  not  permit  the  whole  fut- 
ure to  be  changed  and  robbed  at  this  dangerous 
point.  The  little  spot  of  land,  which  slavery  was 
already  beginning  to  envelop  and  impoverish,  is 
sold,  the  rude  home  is  abandoned ;  the  parents 
escape  from  the  snares  and  dangers  of  slaveholding 
Kentucky,  and  seek  across  the  Ohio,  still  farther 
in  the  wilderness,  a  new  home,  but  on  free  soil. 

And  now  still  further  is  our  hero  trained  for  the 
stern  tasks  of  democratic  sovereignty  before  him. 
It  seems  as  if  he  must  understand  every  atom  of 
that  sovereignty  by  going  through  the  condition  of 
every  individual  constituent  of  it,  before  he  can  be 
ready  to  assume  it  in  his  own  person  for  the  great 
ends  designed.  Hence  he  must  exhaust  every 
democratic  occupation  from  the  most  menial  to  the 
most  honored.  He  is  a  pioneer,  and  day  after  day, 
with  sturdy  blows,  cuts  a  way  through  the  forest  to 


330         THE  DRAMATIC  ELEMENT  IX 

his  home  and  to  the  land  that  is  to  feed  him.  He 
is  a  farmer,  and  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow  gathers 
his  daily  bread  from  the  soil.  He  is  a  mechanic, 
and  helps  build  the  family  house  and  its  furniture. 
He  is  a  famous  rail-splitter,  and  fences  the  farm 
with  his  own  hands.  He  is  a  flatboatman  down 
the  Mississippi.  He  is  a  clerk  in  a  store.  He  is 
a  militia  captain,  and  has  a  little  touch  of  war  in 
the  Indian  troubles  of  the  frontier.  He  sets  up 
in  business  by  himself  as  a  country  trader;  he  is 
postmaster,  land  surveyor,  and  finally  lawyer  and 
legislator. 

And  all  this  time,  too,  he  is  gathering  knowl- 
edge,—  not  in  schools  and  colleges  and  lyceums 
and  public  libraries,  but  out  among  the  Western 
forests  and  prairies,  gleaning  from  nature,  from 
life,  and  from  the  few  books  to  be  found  among  his 
scattered  neighbors  or  bought  with  hard-earned 
savings,  laboring  over  his  books  in  solitude  by  his 
democratic  fireside,  with  his  solitary  democratic 
brain, —  gathering  knowledge,  not  to  veneer  over 
weakness  and  poverty  of  capacity,  not  enough  even 
to  cover  and  conceal  the  rugged  fibre  and  homely 
solidity  of  the  native  stuff  from  which  his  being  is 
made.  All  his  knowledge  is  perfectly  assimilated 
and  used  by  his  nature;  for  this  man,  born  out  of 
the  loins  of  pure  democracy,  and  destined  to  be  the 
leader  of  American  democracy  in  a  deadly  contest 
for  national  existence  and  to  die  its  martyr,  must 
be  purely  American  and  democratic  through  every 
nerve  and  fibre  and  pulse  of  his  being. 


THE    CAREER    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  33 1 

But  again  the  scene  changes.  The  great  strug- 
gle between  democracy  and  despotism  is  approach- 
ing. The  hosts  are  preparing  on  either  side  for 
the  combat,  and  the  destined  leader  of  freedom 
must  come  forth  into  the  public  arena.  Already 
in  Congress  he  had  voted  steadily  for  freedom  and 
equality  in  the  national  Territories,  and  even  at 
that  early  day  had  tried  to  make  the  national  capi- 
tal free  soil.  But  now  the  contest  had  thickened, 
and  the  smell  of  blood  was  already  in  the  land. 
The  virgin  soil  of  Kansas  was  the  prize.  Should 
it  be  polluted  and  ruined  by  the  demon  of  slavery, 
or  given  in  pure  wedlock  to  freedom?  The  plot 
against  democracy  begins  to  unfold  its  horrors :  the 
"coming  man"  must  now  come.  Unavoidably  he 
is  drawn  from  his  retirement  into  the  political 
field;  and,  although  several  years  have  yet  to  pass 
before  he  is  hailed  as  leader,  his  powerful  sword 
can  never  be  sheathed  again. 

In  the  contest  concerning  Kansas,  and  in  the 
famous  Senatorial  campaign  with  Stephen  A. 
Douglas,  which  grew  out  of  the  Kansas  conflict,  it 
is  remarkable  how  sharply  the  lines  were  drawn 
between  freedom  and  slavery,  how  the  debates  con- 
stantly turned  on  this  one  point,  and  how  radical 
and  thorough  Mr.  Lincoln's  utterances  always  were 
as  the  chosen  champion  of  liberty.  It  is  to  be 
noticed,  too,  how  he  uniformly  planted  himself  on 
the  broad  ground  of  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence,—  that  is,  of  free  and  equal  government  for 
all   classes  and  races;  and  he  attacked  slavery,  be- 


332  THE    DRAMATIC    ELEMENT    IN 

cause    slavery    attacked    this    invincibly    true    and 
fundamental  principle  of  the  republic. 

And  at  this  point  in  the  development  of  this  dra- 
matic history  we  come  to  a  very  important  and 
rarely  noticed  fact, —  the  key  of  the  wonderful 
drama.  Abraham  Lincoln  was  the  first  politician 
or  statesman  who  publicly  proclaimed  the  doctrine 
of  the  "  irrepressible  conflict "  of  ideas  between  the 
South  and  the  North.  This  he  did  on  the  17th 
of  June, —  the  anniversary  of  the  battle  of  Bunker 
Hill, —  1858,  in  a  speech  to  the  State  Convention 
of  Illinois,  which  nominated  him  for  Senator 
against  Douglas.  That  speech  opened  almost  with 
the  words  now  become  so  famous  and  familiar:  "A 
house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  I  be- 
lieve this  government  cannot  endure  permanently 
half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the 
Union  to  be  dissolved,  I  do  not  expect  the  house  to 
fall;  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided. 
It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other." 
And  this  was  the  beginning  of  that  noted  Senato- 
rial campaign  which  was  but  preliminary  to  the 
Presidential  campaign.  It  was  the  striking  of  the 
key-note  of  this  great  American  contest :  it  was 
the  clarion  voice  of  the  true,  destined  leader,  sum- 
moning the  hosts  of  freedom  to  his  standard.  For, 
mark  you  again,  this  was  the  first  political  utter- 
ance of  the  doctrine  of  the  irrepressible  conflict 
between  freedom  and  slavery,  declaring  that  one  of 
the  antagonists,  even  in  the  domain  of  the  States, 
must   yield   before  the  other.     The  moral   reform- 


THE    CAREER    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  333 

ers  —  the  abolitionists  —  had  declared  it;  but  no 
statesman  or  leading  politician  proclaimed  it  before 
Abraham  Lincoln.  It  was  he  that  first  took  up 
and  ingrafted  upon  the  politics  of  the  country  the 
moral  ideas  of  the  abolition  reformers.  He  made 
this  remarkable  speech  several  months  before  Mr. 
Seward  took  the  same  idea,  clothed  it  in  philo- 
sophic shape,  and  christened  it  by  the  name  of 
"irrepressible   conflict." 

Can  we  longer  wonder  that  Abraham  Lincoln 
should  be  the  chosen  leader  of  the  hosts  of  democ- 
racy and  freedom,  when  this  conflict  comes  to 
arms?  that  he,  the  first  statesman  who  announced 
the  divine  necessity  of  the  moral  conflict,  should 
be  summoned  to  represent  divine  justice  in  the 
martial  struggle,  and  to  give  thereto  the  costly 
testimony  of  his  life?  Not  otherwise  could  the 
drama  preserve  its  unity.  Blind  fate,  destiny, 
could  have  made  no  other  choice.  Shall  Provi- 
dence be  less  wise  than  destiny?  Shall  the  pro- 
phetic, preparing,  managing  Spirit  be  balked  of  its 
purpose?  Shall  a  mighty  national  contest,  involv- 
ing national  existence  and  the  virtue  and  happi- 
ness of  millions  of  human  beings,  be  subject  to 
accident?  its  sublime  end  postponed  or  thwarted 
by  some  political  marplot?  No!  Providence  is  as 
grandly  steady  as  destiny  or  fate;  and  not  more 
inevitably,  in  the  old  Greek  tragedy,  did  the  fate- 
impelled  hero,  at  the  proper  moment,  come  upon 
the  stage  than  did  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  the  dra- 
matic   ripeness    of    events,    assume    the    political 


334         THE  DRAMATIC  ELEMENT  IN 

leadership  of  this  nation.  Consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, when  the  clash  of  arms  had  come,  the 
hosts  of  loyalty  and  liberty  could  only  rally  around 
the  man  whose  voice  had  first  uttered  the  true 
battle-cry.  And  therefore  it  was  that,  when  that 
moment  came,  we  found  Abraham  Lincoln,  the 
leader  that  democratic  freedom  had  been  preparing 
in  the  West,  in  the  President's  chair  at  Washing- 
ton, and  Commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy 
of  the  United  States. 

And  now  events  hasten  more  rapidly  to  the 
grand  denouement.  Yet,  like  Hamlet,  the  hero 
hesitates.  He  dreads  the  awful  conflict.  He 
shrinks,  as  it  were,  from  the  very  greatness  of  the 
task  imposed  upon  him.  Already,  too,  villany 
lurks  in  his  path,  assassination  is  dogging  his 
steps ;  and  he  walks  henceforth  as  if  burdened  with 
a  mysterious,  foreboding  consciousness  of  his  des- 
tiny. In  his  kindly,  democratic  nature  there 
should  be,  and  is,  no  taste  for  civil  war  and  blood. 
He  tries  to  conciliate,  —  puts  forth  his  arm  to 
avert  the  rushing  fates:  he  holds  the  chalice  of 
the  Constitution  to  the  white,  maddened  lips  of 
the  foe.  But  all  in  vain.  With  boastful,  furious 
words,  the  cup  is  dashed  to  the  ground:  "We  have 
a  new  Constitution,  founded  on  the  divine  right  of 
slavery:  we  fight  for  it,  and  take  and  give  no 
quarter!"  And  so  freedom's  leader  is  held  to  his 
divinely  purposed  work, —  defied  by  despotism, 
until  forced  in  self-defence  into  the  impregnable 
citadel   of  equal   justice. 


THE    CAREER    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  335 

Yet  the  steps  were  all  taken,  not  in  passion,  not 
in  routed  haste,  but  deliberately  and  with  dignity, 
some  of  us  thought  too  slowly  and  hesitatingly 
taken,  and  feared  lest  freedom  would  be  betrayed. 
But  the  great  Dramatist  knew  better  than  we, — 
knew  the  metal  of  the  man,  and  knew  he  would 
not,  could  not,  yield  the  principle  to  which  his  life 
had  been,  as  it  were  by  solemn  vow,  devoted. 

Months  before,  in  his  contest  with  Douglas, 
with  inspired  earnestness  and  in  the  old  Roman 
spirit  of  absolute  self-consecration  to  the  highest 
welfare  of  the  republic,  he  had  exclaimed:  — 

"Think  nothing  of  me:  take  no  thought  for  the 
political  fate  of  any  man  whatsoever,  but  come 
back  to  the  truths  that  are  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  You  may  do  anything  with  me  you 
choose,  if  you  will  but  heed  these  sacred  princi- 
ples. You  may  not  only  defeat  me  for  the  Senate, 
but  you  may  take  me  and  put  me  to  death.  ...  I 
charge  you  to  drop  every  paltry,  insignificant 
thought  for  any  man's  success.  It  is  nothing.  I 
am  nothing.  Judge  Douglas  is  nothing.  But  do 
not  destroy  that  immortal  emblem  of  humanity, — 
the  Declaration  of  Independence." 

And,  again,  on  his  way  to  Washington,  in  the 
old  Independence  Hall  in  Philadelphia,  after  in- 
quiring what  great  sentiment  it  was  in  the  Declara- 
tion there  adopted  which  held  the  colonies  so 
firmly  together  in  the  revolutionary  struggle,  he 
answered,  "It  was  that  sentiment  which  gave  lib- 
erty, not  alone  to  the  people  of  this  country,  but,  I 


336         THE  DRAMATIC  ELEMENT  IN 

hope,  to  the  world,  for  all  future  time:  it  was  that 
which  gave  promise  that  in  due  time  the  weight 
would  be  lifted  from  the  shoulders  of  all  men " ; 
and  then  he  added,  "If  this  country  cannot  be 
saved  without  giving  up  that  principle,  I  was  about 
to  say  I  would  rather  be  assassinated  on  this  spot 
than  surrender  it ! "  and  closed  the  remarkable 
speech  with  the  solemn  words,  "  I  have  said  noth- 
ing but  what  I  am  willing  to  live  by,  and,  if  it  be 
the  pleasure  of  Almighty  God,  die  by."  It  was 
not  in  the  nature  of  the  man  who  had  given  himself 
to  the  whole  truth  of  republican  government  with 
such  vows  as  these,  and  whom  the  angel  of  the  re- 
public was  guarding  for  her  highest  service  and 
greatest  glory,  to  betray  the  sacred  office  for  which 
he  had  thus  received  Heaven's  commission.  He 
was  cautious.  He  saw  every  difficulty  in  the  way; 
for  a  time  it  seemed  as  if  he  reasoned  with  destiny, 
but  he  could  not  betray  the  cause  so  solemnly  com- 
mitted to  his  hands. 

He  was  mortal,  indeed;  and,  with  all  the  care  in 
preparing  him  for  his  high  office,  it  was  impossible 
that  he  should  escape  entirely  all  infection  of  the 
evil  from  which  the  whole  nation  suffered.  He 
still  had  some  respect  for  the  local  laws  of  slavery. 
And  so  the  conflict  must  go  on  in  him,  as  in  the 
nation,  until  he  should  be  purified  by  the  fires  of 
battle  from  all  taint  of  the  evil,  and  be  lifted  clear 
above  all  its  entanglements,  ready  to  strike  the 
fatal  blow  with  full  moral  strength.  Observe,  too, 
that,  consistently  with  his  past  record  and  training, 


THE    CAREER    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  33/ 

he  came  to  the  contest,  not  as  an  abolitionist 
per  se^  but  on  the  broad  ground  of  democracy.  He 
was  an  emancipationist  because  a  true  democrat. 
He  believed  in  freedom  and  equality  for  all,  and 
therefore  for  the  black  man.  He  came  to  the  con- 
flict not  avowedly  to  destroy  slavery,  but  to  save 
democratic  government;  and  he  destroyed  slavery 
because  incompatible  with  the  continued  existence 
of  democratic  government.  The  one  is  the  broader 
position,  and  necessarily  includes  the  other.  De- 
mocracy necessitates  abolitionism.  This  is  the 
truth  he  is  to  proclaim  to  the  world,  and  lead  on  to 
victory. 

And  now  see  the  solemn  steps  of  the  grand 
march.  We  shall  notice  that  there  is  no  retro- 
grade movement, —  that  there  is  really  no  delay, 
that  every  step  comes  in  its  place  with  the  sublime 
constancy  of  fate,  but  also  with  the  paternal, 
humane  promise  of  a  tender  Providence,  and  that 
every  step  lifts  the  nation  upward  upon  higher  and 
broader  ground,  and  nearer  to  the  glory  of  its  final 
triumph.  Even  in  the  first  Inaugural  Address, 
though  conciliatory  and  seeking  in  some  respects 
by  compromise  to  avert  the  conflict,  the  key-note 
of  democratic  faith  and  assurance  is  sounded. 
"Why,"  said  the  President,  "should  there  not  be 
a  patient  confidence  in  the  ultimate  justice  of  the 
people?  Is  there  any  better  or  equal  hope  in  the 
world?  In  our  present  differences  is  either  party 
without  faith  of  being  in  the  right?  If  the  Al- 
mighty Ruler  of  events,  with  his  eternal  truth  and 


338         THE  DRAMATIC  ELEMENT  IN 

justice,  be  on  your  side  of  the  North,  or  on  yours 
of  the  South,  that  truth  and  that  justice  will  surely 
prevail,  by  the  judgment  of  this  great  tribunal  of 
the  American  people."  We  passed  these  words  by 
at  the  time  with  little  notice;  but,  now  that  the 
drama  is  complete,  they  sound  like  the  solemn 
utterances  of  the  chorus  in  ancient  tragedy,  pro- 
nouncing upon  the  gathering  combatants  the 
warning  and  the  judgment  of  the  gods.  It  was  the 
presiding,  oracular  genius  of  the  republic  that 
uttered  them,    giving  judgment   in  advance. 

Again,  in  the  first  message  to  Congress,  dated 
July  4,  1 86 1,  though  slavery  is  not  directly  at- 
tacked, there  are  brave  sentences  that  strike  at  its 
root,  and  that  must  one  day  strike  the  fetters  from 
all  men's  limbs.  "This  is  essentially  a  people's 
contest.  On  the  side  of  the  Union  it  is  a  struggle 
for  maintaining  in  the  world  that  form  and  sub- 
stance of  government  whose  leading  object  is  to 
elevate  the  condition  of  men,  to  lift  artificial 
weights  from  all  shoulders,  to  clear  the  paths  of 
laudable  pursuits  for  all,  to  afford  all  an  unfettered 
start  and  a  fair  chance  in  the  race  of  life."  None 
but  the  Western  pioneer,  cradled  in  poverty,  and, 
by  his  own  sturdy  hands  and  the  "fair  chance" 
that  democratic  institutions  put  into  them,  hewing 
his  way  into  public  position  by  a  purely  democratic 
path,  could  have  uttered  these  words  from  the 
Presidential  chair.  Already  we  see  in  them  the 
promise  of  a  united  and  emancipated  country. 
These    are    the    same    syllables    that,    by    a    little 


THE    CAREER    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  339 

change  of  articulation,  are  to  pronounce  Richmond 
fallen,  and  the  slave  of  South  Carolina  free. 

In  the  message  of  December,  1861,  there  is  an 
elaborate  discussion,  on  principles  of  political 
economy,  of  the  question  of  capital  and  labor,  in 
which  the  pure  democratic  ground  is  taken  that 
labor  is  superior  to  capital,  and  must  be  free  and 
own  capital,  and  not  capital,  labor.  The  discus- 
sion seemed  to  us  abstract  and  ill-adapted  to  the 
pressing  emergency  of  the  hour;  but  we  see  now 
how  fittingly  it  takes  its  place  in  the  great  struggle 
to  complete  the  loyal  argument.  It  is  the  bud  of 
emancipation  in  the  loyal  border  States.  It  is  an 
appeal  to  prudent,  thinking  men,  on  grounds  of 
industrial  prosperity  and  self-interest.  It  brings 
the  re-enforcement  of  material  and  social  well- 
being  to  the  cause  of  divine  justice.  Hear,  too, 
how  at  the  close,  the  grand  choral  strain  comes  in 
again,  giving  utterance  to  the  sublimer  principles 
that  underlie  the  irrepressible  conflict,  and  sum- 
moning the  contestants  again  to  the  bar  of  future 
judgment. 

"This  [the  free  system  of  labor]  is  the  just  and 
generous  and  prosperous  system,  which  opens  the 
way  to  all,  gives  hope  to  all,  and  consequent  en- 
ergy and  progress  and  improvement  of  condition  to 
all.  No  men  living  are  more  worthy  to  be  trusted 
than  those  who  toil  up  from  poverty,  none  less  in- 
clined to  take  or  touch  aught  which  they  have  not 
honestly  earned.  Let  them  beware  of  surrendering 
a  political   power  which  they  already  possess,  and 


340  THE    DRAMATIC    ELEMENT    IN 

which,  if  surrendered,  will  surely  be  used  to  close 
the  door  of  advancement  against  such  as  they,  and 
to  fix  new  disabilities  and  burdens  upon  them,  till 
all  of  liberty  shall  be  lost.  .  .  .  The  struggle  of 
to-day  is  not  altogether  for  to-day :  it  is  for  a  vast 
future  also." 

Closely  following, —  only  three  months  later, —  a 
special  message  is  sent  to  Congress,  recommending 
the  passage  of  a  resolution  by  which  the  federal 
government  shall  be  authorized  to  co-operate  by 
pecuniary  aid  with  any  State  that  will  enact  grad- 
ual abolition  of  slavery.  Two  months  afterward, 
in  a  public  proclamation,  attention  is  called  to  this 
resolution,  which  was  adopted  by  Congress;  and 
the  States  most  interested  are  earnestly  appealed 
to,  to  avail  themselves  quickly  of  its  privilege. 
Says  the  President :  — 

"You  cannot,  if  you  would,  be  blind  to  the 
signs  of  the  times.  I  beg  of  you  a  calm  and  en- 
larged consideration  of  them,  ranging,  if  it  may 
be,  far  above  partisan  and  personal  politics.  This 
proposal  makes  common  cause  for  a  common  object, 
casting  no  reproaches  upon  any.  It  acts  not  the 
Pharisee.  The  change  it  contemplates  would  come 
gently  as  the  dews  of  heaven,  not  rending  or 
wrecking  anything.  Will  you  not  embrace  it? 
So  much  good  has  not  been  done  by  one  effort 
in  all  past  time  as  in  the  providence  of  God  it 
is  now  your  high  privilege  to  do.  May  the  vast 
future  not  have  to  lament  that  you  have  neg- 
lected it!" 


THE    CAREER    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  34I 

And  SO  the  chorus  echoes  back  with  added  in- 
tensity the  divine  plea  of  impartial  justice  that  wag 
the  sublime  burden  of  the  previous  message. 

In  the  regular  message  of  December,  1862,  the 
same  subject  is  taken  up  again,  and  discussed  more 
elaborately  and  with  greater  scope.  It  is  now  pro- 
posed that  Congress  shall  not  wait  for  the  States  to 
accept,  at  their  option,  its  offer  of  pecuniary  aid 
toward  emancipation,  but  shall  initiate  emancipa- 
tion. An  amendment  to  the  Constitution  is  rec- 
ommended, by  which  slavery  shall  be  gradually, 
yet  entirely,  abolished  in  all  the  States  and 
throughout  the  country.  But  the  great  import  of 
the  paper  was  not  so  much  what  it  recommended, 
for  its  plan  of  emancipation  was  too  heavily  condi- 
tioned to  be  practically  available,  as  the  fact  that 
the  abolition  of  slavery  was  for  the  first  time 
boldly  and  seriously  discussed  and  made  the  most 
important  topic  in  a  regular  Presidential  message. 
More  memorable  still  is  the  message  for  its  closing 
words,  in  which  the  chorus  of  the  drama  again 
speaks,  inspired  by  the  genius  of  republican  free- 
dom, who  thus  urges  her  champions  up  to  the  true 
battle-ground,  and  holds  the  now  fast  developing 
action  close  to  its  divine  intent.  Hear  the  deep, 
stately,  measured  tones  as  they  seem  to  come  from 
the  distant  heavens  :  — 

"The  dogmas  of  the  quiet  past  are  inadequate  to 
the  stormy  present.  The  occasion  is  piled  high 
with  difficulty,  and  we  must  rise  with  the  occa- 
sion .  .  .   We  must  disenthrall   ourselves,  and  then 


342         THE  DRAMATIC  ELEMENT  IN 

we  shall  save  our  country.  .  .  .  No  personal  signifi- 
cance or  insignificance  can  spare  one  or  another  of 
us.  The  fiery  trial  through  which  we  pass  will 
light  us  down  in  honor  or  dishonor  to  the  latest 
generation.  .  .  .  We  —  even  we  here  —  hold  the 
power  and  bear  the  responsibility.  In  giving 
freedom  to  the  slave  we  assure  freedom  to  the 
free,  honorable  alike  in  what  we  give  and  what  we 
preserve.  We  shall  nobly  save  or  meanly  lose  the 
last,  best  hope  of  earth.  Other  means  may  suc- 
ceed. This  could  not,  cannot  fail.  The  way  is 
plain,  peaceful,  generous,  just, —  a  way  which,  if 
followed,  the  world  will  forever  applaud  and  God 
must  forever  bless." 

But  this  paper  coupled  with  its  plan  of  grad- 
ual abolition  the  principles  of  compensation  and 
voluntary  colonization.  Its  proposed  method  of 
action  was  not  so  lofty  as  the  spirit  that  inspired 
it.  The  noble  goal  aimed  at  condemned  the  halt- 
ing effort.  It  was  not  for  any  such  imperfect 
result  that  this  mighty  contest  was  proving  the 
metal  of  the  nation.  The  human  instrument  was 
not  so  far-sighted  as  the  Providence  which  wrought 
through  him, —  the  actor  not  so  wise  as  the 
manager  behind  the  scenes.  Yet  he  is  faithful 
and  true,  and  submits  himself  with  unwavering 
loyalty  to  the  teaching  of  events  and  of  God;  and 
with  ever-lengthening  and  bolder  paces  he  goes 
forward.  One  after  another  all  imposed  conditions 
of  emancipation  drop  away.  Compensation,  grad- 
ualism,  colonization,   vanish  and  become    obsolete 


THE    CAREER    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  343 

ideas;  and  the  champion  stands,  clean  from  all 
alloy  of  the  evil  he  is  to  annihilate,  alone  with  God 
and  justice. 

In  August,  1 86 1,  he  had  modified  General  Fre- 
mont's proclamation  of  emancipation  in  Missouri 
to  conciliate  Kentucky.  In  May,  1862,  he  had 
countermanded  General  Hunter's  decree  of  aboli- 
tion in  the  Department  of  the  South  only  because  he 
reserved  the  great  right  for  himself  and  would  not 
allow  it  to  be  frittered  away  powerlessly,  and  with 
little  moral  effect,  by  subordinates.  It  is  evident 
in  the  very  order  of  countermand  that  he  begins  to 
see  clearly  what  the  line  of  duty  and  destiny  must 
be.  He  appeals  to  the  insurgent  States,  in  the 
words  already  quoted,  to  smooth  the  way  to  peace- 
ful emancipation  by  voluntarily  acceding  to  the 
logic  of  events  and  to  the  plain  intent  of  divine 
Providence.  Even  as  late  as  the  13th  of  September 
he  had  received  a  religious  deputation  from  the  city 
of  Chicago,  appointed  to  urge  him  to  declare  eman- 
cipation by  military  proclamation,  and  replied  to 
their  arguments  with  such  a  strong  array  of  objec- 
tions to  the  measure  that  the  deputation  had 
departed  in  great  doubt  as  to  his  adopting  it.  But 
it  is  as  clear  as  noonday  now  that  the  President 
had  been  debating  the  measure  in  his  own  mind  for 
months,  and  marshalling  the  arguments  for  and 
against  it,  and  that  in  this  interview  he  summed  up 
the  difficulties  in  the  way,  as  they  had  presented 
themselves  to  him,  in  order  to  draw  forth,  if  possi- 
ble, from  the  deputation  new  light  upon  the  ques- 


344         THE  DRAMATIC  ELEMENT  IN 

tion.  He  also  significantly  added  at  the  close  of 
the  conference:  "I  can  assure  you  the  subject  is 
on  my  mind  by  day  and  night  more  than  any 
other.  Whatever  shall  appear  to  be  God's  will  I 
will  do."  And  now  God's  will  is  rapidly  revealed 
to  him,  not  through  miraculous  interposition, — 
for,  as  he  says,  "these  are  not  the  days  of  mir- 
acles,"—  but  through  an  earnest  desire  to  "ascer- 
tain what  is  possible  and  learn  what  appears  to  be 
wise  and  right."  Events  are  his  instructors.  The 
spirit  of  Almighty  Justice,  unfolding  its  high  pur- 
pose more  and  more  in  the  daily  history  of  the 
struggle,  is  his  teacher.  He  consults  his  cabinet 
for  suggestion,  not  for  advice.  Upon  him  Heaven 
has  put  the  responsibilty,  and  he  will  decide  and 
bear  the  weight  of  the  decision  alone.  And  the 
decision  being  made,  the  duty  clear,  on  the  22d  of 
September  he  issues  the  preliminary  declaration, 
and  gives  the  final  warning  to  the  rebellious  States; 
and  on  the  ist  of  January,  1863,  appears  the  great 
Proclamation  of  immediate  emancipation. 

The  critical  blow  has  now  been  struck.  The  deed 
is  done  for  which  all  before  has  been  only  prep- 
aration; and  all  that  comes  after — emancipation 
in  the  border  States,  the  enlistment  of  negroes  in 
the  army,  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  the  anti-slavery 
amendment  to  the  Constitution  —  is  only  the  gath- 
ering up  of  the  fruits  of  that  victory  and  making 
it  secure  forever.  The  issuing  of  the  Proclamation 
was  the  crisis  in  the  drama;  and  so,  when  that 
blow  was  given,  the  embattled  hosts  rushed  to  the 


THE    CAREER    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  345 

conflict  with  a  more  furious  and  deadlier  onset.  It 
was  now  life  or  death  to  the  foe  and  slavery,  life 
or  death  to  the  nation  and  freedom.  But  through 
all  the  deathly  contests  on  the  martial  field  and 
through  all  the  struggles  on  the  equally  dangerous 
field  of  politics,  threatened  by  foes  and  importuned 
by  friends,  the  President  never  recedes  from  that 
decree.  "The  promise,"  he  says,  "being  made, 
must  be  kept."  "While  I  remain  in  my  present 
position,  I  shall  not  attempt  to  retract  or  modify 
the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  nor  shall  I  return 
to  slavery  any  person  who  is  free  by  the  terms  of 
that  Proclamation  or  by  any  of  the  acts  of  Con- 
gress." And  again,  "If  the  people,"  he  says,  "by 
whatever  mode  or  means,  should  make  it  an  ex- 
ecutive duty "  to  reverse  the  action  of  that 
Proclamation,  "another,  and  not  I,  must  be  their 
instrument  to  perform  it."  Here  speaks  the  stern 
stuff  from  which  strong  men  are  made  and  martyrs 
come.  But  the  people  will  stand  by  the  Proclama- 
tion, nor  will  they  choose  any  other  hand  than  his 
that  had  written  it  to  execute  it.  Not  to  another 
can  the  true  champion's  glory  be  given  before  the 
field  is  wholly  won. 

And  now,  with  clearer  vision  and  more  entire 
surrender  to  the  divine  purpose  of  events,  he  con- 
secrates himself  to  the  remaining  tasks  before  him. 
Henceforth  union  and  freedom  are  synonymous. 
Two  conditions  are  necessary  to  peace, —  the  aboli- 
tion of  all  acts  of  secession,  the  acceptance  of 
emancipation.     But  hear  again  the  lofty  strains  of 


346  THE    DRAMATIC    ELEMENT    IN 

the  chorus,  pronouncing  judgment  on  the  new 
aspect  of  affairs  :  — 

"Peace  does  not  appear  so  distant  as  it  did.  I 
hope  it  will  come  soon  and  come  to  stay,  and  so 
come  as  to  be  worth  the  keeping  in  all  future  time. 
It  will  then  have  been  proved  that  among  freemen 
there  can  be  no  successful  appeal  from  the  ballot  to 
the  bullet,  and  that  they  who  take  such  appeal  are 
sure  to  lose  their  case  and  pay  the  cost.  And 
there  will  be  some  black  men  who  can  remember 
that,  with  silent  tongue  and  clinched  teeth  and 
steady  eye  and  well-poised  bayonet,  they  have 
helped  mankind  on  to  this  great  consummation; 
while  I  fear  there  will  be  some  white  ones  unable 
to  forget  that,  with  malignant  heart  and  deceitful 
speech,  they  have  striven  to  hinder  it.  Still,  let 
us  not  be  over-sanguine  of  a  speedy,  final  triumph. 
Let  us  be  quite  sober.  Let  us  diligently  apply  the 
means,  never  doubting  that  a  just  God,  in  his  own 
good  time,  will  give  us  the  rightful  result." 

And  so,  with  ever  broader  comprehension  of  the 
divine  meaning  of  the  contest  and  deeper  convic- 
tion of  the  divine  hand  controlling  it,  the  President 
renews  his  vows,  and  leads  on  the  loyal  hosts  of 
freedom  to  new  achievements.  Under  God,  and 
the  providential  choice  of  the  nation,  he  is  the  in- 
strument for  establishing  the  government  on  the 
true  democratic  basis  of  liberty,  justice,  and  equal- 
ity, and  so  for  fulfilling,  at  last,  the  prophecy  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  to  all  the  people 
of  the  land. 


THE    CAREER    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  347 

At  Gettysburg,  standing  among  the  graves  of  the 
heroes  who  on  that  glorious  field  had  given  their 
bodies  to  death,  but  who,  with  their  blood,  had 
written  their  names  in  the  book  of  immortal  life, 
he  opens  his  address  with  these  memorable  sen- 
tences :  "  Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers 
brought  forth  upon  this  continent  a  new  nation, 
conceived  in  liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the  proposi- 
tion that  all  men  are  created  equal.  Now  we  are 
engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether  that 
nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so  dedi- 
cated, can  long  endure."  And  then  he  solemnly 
consecrates  himself  and  the  nation  to  finish  the 
work  which  the  heroes  there  buried  had  so  nobly 
died  for,  in  order  "that  this  nation,  under  God, 
shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom,  and  that  govern- 
ment of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the 
people   shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 

What  a  perfect  recognition  of  the  eternal  princi- 
ples involved  in  the  conflict,  and  of  the  Providence 
watching  over  and  directing  with  far-reaching 
vision  the  struggle,  does  this  reverent  dedication 
disclose!  Henceforth  the  nation's  President  is 
God's  servant,  and  the  war  is  a  religious  war, —  a 
religious  war  more  really  than  if  it  were  to  set  up 
some  idol  of  theology,  or  to  enthrone  some  ecclesi- 
astic power,  or  to  rescue  the  tomb  of  Jesus  from 
the  hand  of  unbelieving  Saracens;  for  it  is  a  war 
to  disenthrall  and  redeem  humanity,  to  rescue  a 
whole  continent  from  being  the  grave  of  liberty  to 
become  its  throne,  to   lift   from   the  shoulders  of  a 


348         THE  DRAMATIC  ELEMENT  IN 

whole  people,  through  the  expiatory  suffering  of 
just  retribution,  the  monstrous  burden  of  a  gigan- 
tic iniquity,  and  to  bring,  through  the  reconcil- 
iation of  obedience  to  divine  law,  the  grandest 
opportunity  for  national  and  individual  develop- 
ment that  was  ever  offered  to  the  human  race :  it  is 
a  war,  conducted  by  unseen  powers  in  the  heavens, 
for  the  divine  right  of  mankind,  without  reference 
to  race  or  class  or  color,  to  self-government  and 
self-development.  And  the  President  acknowl- 
edges himself  but  a  willing  instrument  in  the 
hands  of  the  mighty  celestial  forces  directing  the 
combat.  Hear  how  the  iips  of  the  loyal  leader 
give  utterance  to  the  sentiment  of  this  advanced 
position :  "  Now,  at  the  end  of  three  years'  strug- 
gle, the  nation's  condition  is  not  what  either  party, 
or  any  man,  devised  or  expected.  God  alone  can 
claim  it.  Whither  it  is  tending  seems  plain.  If 
God  now  wills  the  removal  of  a  great  wrong,  and 
wills  also  that  we  of  the  North,  as  well  as  you  of 
the  South,  shall  pay  fairly  for  our  complicity  in 
that  wrong,  impartial  history  will  find  therein  new 
causes  to  attest  and  revere  the  justice  and  goodness 
of  God." 

From  this  high  position  it  is  but  a  step  to  the 
final  consummation  of  the  moral  progress  of  the 
drama.  After  a  political  struggle,  filled  with  crit- 
ical and  perilous  incidents  and  the  most  solemnly 
momentous  of  any  that  has  occurred  in  our  history, 
the  people  rechoose  for  their  leader  the  man  who 
now  confesses  himself  to  be  not  only  the   servant 


THE    CAREER    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  349 

of  the  people,  but  the  servant  of  God;  and  they 
choose  him  with  the  express  purpose  that  he  may 
finish  the  work  for  republican  freedom  which  the 
retributive  justice  of  Almighty  God  has  given  to 
his  hands.  And  now  the  recognition  of  this  truth 
of  the  expiatory  nature  of  the  war,  and  the  divine 
instrumentality  of  his  office,  culminates  in  the 
majestic,  almost  awful  solemnity  of  the  second 
Inaugural  Address,  which  rises  clear  above  all 
earthly  taint  and  human  infirmity  and  reservation, 
to  the  prophetic  and  divine  standpoint.  The  polit- 
ical orator  is  clothed  with  the  mantle  of  the  in- 
spired prophet.  The  wise  statesman  utters  his 
counsels  as  from  the  tribunal  of  heaven.  The 
leader  of  the  nation  becomes  the  oracle  of  divine 
laws  and  judgments.  From  the  mouth  of  what 
other  human  magistrate  in  all  history  shall  we  find 
such  utterances  as  these? 

"The  Almighty  has  his  own  purposes.  'Woe 
came  into  the  world  because  of  offences,  for  it 
must  needs  be  that  offences  come;  but  woe  to 
that  man  by  whom  the  offence  cometh.'  If  we 
shall  suppose  that  American  slavery  is  one  of  these 
offences  which  in  the  providence  of  God  must 
needs  come,  but  which,  having  continued  through 
his  appointed  time,  he  now  wills  to  remove,  and 
that  he  gives  to  both  North  and  South  this  terrible 
war  as  the  woe  due  to  those  by  whom  the  offence 
came,  shall  we  discern  that  there  is  any  departure 
from  those  divine  attributes  which  the  believers  in 
a  living  God  always  ascribe  to  him?     Fondly  do 


350         THE  DRAMATIC  ELEMENT  IN 

we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pray,  that  this  mighty 
scourge  of  war  may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet,  if 
God  wills  that  it  continue  until  all  the  wealth 
piled  by  the  bondman's  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every 
drop  of  blood  drawn  by  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by 
another  drawn  with  the  sword,  as  was  said  three 
thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said  that 
the  'judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous 
altogether.'  With  malice  toward  none,  with  char- 
ity for  all,  with  firmness  in  the  right,  as  God  gives 
us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  strive  on  to  finish  the 
work  we  are  in,  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds,  to 
care  for  him  who  shall  have  borne  the  battle,  and 
for  his  widow  and  his  orphans, — ^to  do  all  which 
may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  lasting  peace 
among  ourselves  and  with  all  nations." 

In  these  words  the  highest  possible  utterance  of 
the  struggle  is  reached,  the  moral  triumph  of  the 
drama  is  here  achieved,  the  eternal  majesty  of  the 
divine  laws  is  acknowledged  and  vindicated;  and 
the  hero  stands  perfectly  submissive  to  the  divine 
Purpose,  docile  to  the  slightest  behest  of  Almighty 
Power,  and  his  eye  anointed  with  heavenly  wis- 
dom. These  sentences  read  like  a  solemn  choral 
response  to  the  half-illuminated,  oracularly  uttered 
judgment  of  the  first  Inaugural:  it  is  the  genius 
of  the  republic,  gathering  up,  as  in  the  ancient 
chorus,  the  whole  meaning  and  purpose  of  the 
drama,  and  echoing  back,  through  all  the  vast, 
intervening   events   of   the   action,   the   august   an- 


THE    CAREER    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  35 1 

nouncement  that  the  mystery  is  unravelled,  the 
struggle  ended,  the  judgment  finished  and  unalter- 
ably given.  Battles,  victories,  capitulations,  the 
surrender  of  armies  and  towns,  the  submission  of 
the  whole  rebellion  to  the  cause  that  is  thus  de- 
cided for  by  the  celestial  umpires,  follow  in  rapid 
and  natural  course. 

But  is  the  hero  to  have  no  more  visible  triumph 
than  this?  Yes:  he  enters  the  fallen  capital  of 
rebellion  and  slavery.  His  entrance  into  Rich- 
mond, with  no  imperial  pomp,  with  no  military 
escort  even,  attended  only  by  a  few  sailors  from 
the  navy, —  emblem  of  republican  Executive  sim- 
plicity; walking  up  the  long,  desolate  streets  of 
the  captured  city,  in  plain  citizen's  dress,  holding 
his  little  boy  by  the  hand, —  emblem  of  republi- 
can domestic  simplicity;  followed  by  a  growing 
throng,  as  the  news  ran  from  street  to  street,  of 
men,  women,  and  children,  from  whose  limbs  his 
hands  had  broken  the  shackles  of  slavery,  their 
skin  black,  but  hearts  white  with  joyous  gratitude, 
as  they  crowded  round  to  hail  their  deliverer,  bar- 
ing their  heads  in  reverence  before  him,  and  he, 
with  instinctive  courtesy,  standing  with  uncovered 
head  in  response, —  emblem  of  democratic  liberty 
and  equality, —  this  journey  is  his  triumphal  pro- 
cession, this  throng  of  emancipated  slaves  his  im- 
perial escort,  the  benedictions  of  these  new-made 
freemen  are  his  crown,  the  crown  of  democratic 
sovereignty. 

There  is  now  but  one  remaining  glory  that  can 


352         THE  DRAMATIC  ELEMENT  IN 

be  accorded.  The  strict  laws  of  tragedy  require 
that  the  hero  shall  die  for  the  truth  he  has  lived 
for,  shall  fall  in  the  hour  of  triumph.  And  so  the 
President  must  fall.  Does  Providence  therefore 
direct  the  assassin's  blow?  By  no  means:  only  as 
the  Providential  laws  surround,  limit,  and  pene- 
trate every  contest  between  good  and  evil.  But 
the  deadly  blow  is  aimed  'by  the  hand  of  the  foe. 
It  is  the  last,  desperate,  maddened  effort  of  the 
struggling  combatant.  It  is  the  crowning  wicked- 
ness of  the  rebellion  and  slavery.  The  evil  prin- 
ciple of  the  drama  must  culminate,  as  well  as  the 
good:  it  must  develop  all  its  inherent  and  hidden 
horrors  of  evil.  It  must  leave  no  seed  of  crime 
that  belongs  to  itself  unfruitful ;  it  must  leave  not 
the  smallest  vestige  of  honor  attached  to  its  name. 
And  so,  filled  with  revenge,  mad  with  defeat,  in- 
spired with  demoniac  frenzy,  it  puts  forth  all  the 
remaining  energy  of  its  mortal  strength  to  slay  the 
man  whom  it  recognizes  as  the  incarnation  of  all 
the  principles  that  have  contended  against  it,  and 
the  leader  of  the  hosts  that  have  defeated  it  in 
battle.  It  slays  him,  and  thereby,  according  to 
the  moral  intent  of  the  drama,  brands  itself  with 
everlasting  infamy,  while  it  lifts  him  to  an  im- 
mortal glory,  and  saves  forever  the  truth  to  which 
his  life  was  devoted.  The  assassin's  crime  is  the 
rebellion's  infamy,  and  his  and  freedom's  apothe- 
osis. The  President  falls.  But  over  his  grave  the 
nation  has  a  new  birth,  a  resurrection.  He  seals 
his  testament  with   his  blood,  and  sanctifies  repub- 


THE    CAREER    OF    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  35$ 

lican  truth  forever.  The  President  falls.  But 
over  his  grave  his  spirit  rises  into  the  renowned 
halls  of  the  celestial  heroes,  welcomed  amid  the 
triumphant  songs  of  a  nation  redeemed,  a  people 
emancipated,  a  country  saved. 

With  the  hero's  triumphant  departure  from  earth 
the  drama  is  ended;  but  the  Spirit  of  the  drama 
lingers,  and  utters  an  epilogue  for  the  awestruck, 
listening  spectators,  and  this  is  the  epilogue  it 
speaks : — 

The  President  falls,  "for,  where  a  testament  is, 
there  must  also  of  necessity  be  the  death  of  the 
testator."  The  President  falls.  But  his  testament 
remains  with  us,  "for  a  testament  is  of  force  after 
men  are  dead."  The  testament  remains.  The  na- 
tion, humanity,  the  world,  are  its  legatees;  but 
we,  the  people  of  this  generation,  are  its  executors, 
and  we  have  given  sacred  bonds,  written  and  at- 
tested on  many  a  battlefield  with  our  kindred's 
blood,  that  we  will  administer  it,  —  administer  it 
with  exact  and  impartial  justice  to  all  classes  and 
castes  and  races  among  us, —  in  order  "that  gov- 
ernment of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the 
people  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 


THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTISM. 

There  are  certain  familiar  phrases  on  the  lips 
and  in  the  press  to-day,  such  as  "the  higher  edu- 
cation," "the  higher  criticism,"  "the  higher  cult- 
ure." The  meaning  of  these  phrases  may  not  be 
clearly  grasped  by  all  who  hear  or  see  them,  nor 
even,  possibly,  by  all  who  use  them.  Yet  they  all 
denote,  in  some  way,  a  higher  or  more  comprehen- 
sive standard  of  judgment,  with  regard  to  the 
subject-matter  considered,  than  was  in  vogue  even 
less  than  a  half-century  ago.  "The  higher  educa- 
tion "  means  not  merely  an  advanced  course  of  in- 
struction beyond  the  traditional  "three  R's "  of 
the  old-time  common  school,  but  it  means  an 
advancement  of  the  whole  realm  of  learning.  It 
means  that  there  is  a  higher  school  than  the  high 
school,  and  that  the  college  course  of  studies  has 
been  widened  immeasurably  from  the  routine  of  a 
generation  or  two  back,  and  that,  even  in  the  com- 
mon school,  glimpses  are  given  of  this  larger  realm 
of  knowledge.  It  means,  too,  quite  as  much,  a 
different  educational  method  in  every  grade  and 
kind  of  education,  that  education  is  no  longer  the 
mere  hammering  of  facts  into  the  brain,  but  the 
training  of  the  brain  into  the  perceptions  and  use 
of    facts.      So    "the    higher   criticism"   means   the 


THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTJSM  355 

application  of  a  new  and  more  scientific  method  of 
research  to  the  subject-matters  of  learning,  and 
particularly  to  the  study  of  the  Bible  and  the  gen- 
eral phenomena  of  religion. 

But  the  phrases  themselves,  even  more  than  their 
meaning,  have  suggested  my  topic  this  morning, 
in  connection  with  the  annual  recurrence  of  our 
national  birthday.  The  age  which  is  talking  so 
much  of  the  higher  education,  the  higher  criticism, 
the  higher  culture,  the  higher  civilization,  should 
certainly  recognize  the  need  of  a  higher  patriotism. 
And  we  of  this  country,  at  the  present  hour,  are, 
in  my  opinion,  in  a  condition  of  urgent  need  of  a 
higher  standard  of  patriotic  sentiment  than  that 
which  apparently  animates  the  active  majority  of 
our  country's  population.  If  the  country  is  to  do 
its  part  worthily  in  behalf  of  these  great  interests 
of  education,  culture,  civilization,  and  religion,  if 
it  is  even  to  hold  worthily  the  traditions  of  the 
past  in  these  respects,  it  is  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance that  the  standard  of  patriotism  among  us 
should  be  lifted  to  a  higher  level,  that  the  senti- 
ment of  patriotism  —  that  is,  our  love  for  and  our 
pride  in  our  country  —  should  be  infused  with  a 
loftier  and  purer  principle.  These  great  interests, 
it  is  true,  are  not  bounded  by  national  frontiers. 
Humanity  overleaps  the  distinctions  of  country  and 
race.  Religion  is  as  wide  as  the  world.  Learn- 
ing and  civilization  are  not  provincialized  to  any 
one  land.  The  philanthropist  may  truthfully  say, 
"My   country    is    the   world;    my   countrymen    are 


356  THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTISM 

mankind."  Yet  vvc  cannot  live  in  all  countries  at 
once.  Our  work  must  be  done  in  some  special 
part  of  the  world,  in  connection  with  some  special 
country  and  people.  And  the  more  and  better 
work  we  do  for  the  elevation  of  our  own  country 
and  people,  the  more  effectively  will  our  power  be 
manifest  in  promoting  the  interests  of  mankind  the 
world  over.  The  working  end  of  our  lever  for  lift- 
ing the  human  race  forward  is  in  our  own  land. 

These  statements,  again,  presuppose  that  our 
regard  and  service  for  our  own  country  are  based 
on  ethical  principles.  The  kind  of  patriotism 
whose  motto  is,  "Our  country,  right  or  wrong,"  or 
even,  ''Our  country,  however  bounded,"  is  not  to 
be  commended.  National  selfishness  is  just  as  im- 
moral as  individual  selfishness.  The  self-aggran- 
dizement of  one  nation  at  the  cost  of  another  nation, 
especially  if  the  latter  be  a  weak  nation  at  the 
mercy  of  a  strong  neighbor,  is  just  as  much  a  viola- 
tion of  the  principles  of  honor  and  justice  as  would 
be  a  similar  course  of  conduct  by  one  man  toward 
another.  The  building  up  of  one  country  by  de- 
frauding another  is  just  as  much  theft  as  it  is  when 
one  individual  land-owner  adds  to  his  estate  by 
some  fraudulent  depredation  on  his  neighbor's 
property  rights.  "Thou  shalt  not  steal,"  "Thou 
shalt  not  covet  anything  that  is  thy  neighbor's," 
"Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness,"  are  command- 
ments which  apply  to  nations  as  well  as  to  individ- 
uals. Yet,  on  account  of  the  difficulty  of  fixing 
the  weight  of  moral   responsibility  so  that  it  may 


THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTISM  35/ 

be  felt,  where  for  the  acts  of  nations  there  are  so 
many  who  may  properly  share  it,  there  is  a  too 
general  acquiescence  in  the  idea,  though  few  would 
openly  defend  it,  that  there  is  a  lower  moral  code 
for  the  conduct  of  nations  than  for  individuals. 
Then,  too,  on  account  of  sentimental  associations 
which  people  have  with  the  land  of  their  birth  and 
their  homes,  of  their  fathers  and  their  kindred,  a 
glamour  is  apt  to  creep  over  the  conscience  when 
it  is  a  question  of  moral  judgment  concerning 
one's  own  country's  deeds.  It  is  a  feeling  akin  to 
that  which  leads  one  to  look  blindly,  if  not  forgiv- 
ingly, toward  the  faults  of  one's  own  family.  But, 
however  excusable  or  even  commendable  such  ten- 
derness may  be  toward  moral  infirmity  in  the  fam- 
ily circle,  it  is  not  a  mood  of  mind  that  is  morally 
wholesome  for  a  citizen  to  entertain  toward  his 
country.  The  relation  is,  in  fact,  so  different  that 
no  moral  parallelism  exists  between  the  two  cases. 
In  the  family  the  upright  and  the  infirm  are  equally 
members  of  one  body,  and  the  relation  is  between 
one  individual  and  another.  But  the  citizen  is  a 
part  of  his  country.  The  citizen  is  not  one  indi- 
vidual and  his  country  another,  but  the  citizens 
together  are  the  country.  Its  acts  are  their  acts. 
Its  morality  is  their  morality.  Its  infirmities  are 
their  infirmities.  Hence,  when  the  citizens  are 
induced  to  look  tenderly  and  forgivingly  toward 
their  country's  faults,  they  are  really  excusing  and 
petting  their  own  faults;  and  this  is  a  national 
mood  of  mind  that  is  anything  but  wholesome  and 


358  THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTISM 

reformatory.  We  want  no  patriotism  in  this  age 
which  asserts  that  one's  own  country  can  do  no 
wrong,  more  than  we  want  the  antiquated  doctrine 
that  "the  king  can  do  no  wrong."  One  assertion 
is  as  false  as  the  other.  The  higher  patriotism 
must  be  interfused,  through  and  through,  with  the 
ethical  sentiment.  It  cannot  be  merely  the  love 
and  defence  of  one's  country  because  it  chances  to 
be  one's  birthplace  and  home  and  to  hold  the 
graves  of  one's  forefathers,  but  it  should  be  an 
aspiration  and  purpose  to  make  a  country  which 
shall  be  morally  worthy  of  the  love  and  defence  of 
noble-minded  citizens.  Not  what  our  country  is, 
but  what  it  can  and  ought  to  be,  is  the  central 
pivot  of  the   higher  patriotism. 

As  to  our  own  country,  there  is  so  much  in  its 
history  and  in  the  basic  principles  of  its  govern- 
ment that  is  worthy  of  the  utmost  moral  admira- 
tion that  the  danger  is  that  any  one  generation  is 
tempted  to  trust  too  much  to  that  roll  of  honor  and 
to  boast  of  it  as  a  shield  against  any  arraignment 
of  present  delinquencies.  And  then,  too,  ours  is 
a  country  so  magnificent  in  its  extent  and  re- 
sources, its  growth  and  prosperity  have  been  so 
unexampled,  its  natural  scenery  is  so  diversified  in 
beauty  and  grandeur,  and  its  people,  rapidly  multi- 
plying by  migrations  from  all  parts  of  the  earth, 
have  shown,  on  the  whole,  in  the  little  more  than 
a  century  since  they  became  an  independent  nation, 
such  a  marvel  of  success  in  the  art  of  self-govern- 
ment, that  our  patriotic  sentiment   is  quick  to  go 


THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTISM  359 

out  to  all  these  outward  marks  of  national  greatness 
and  wealth,  and  to  overlook  some  of  the  weightier 
matters  which  make  a  nation  morally  great  and 
powerful,  wherein  our  record  would  not  be  so  much 
to  our  credit.  It  is  a  pity  that  on  the  anniversary 
celebrations  of  our  national  birth  so  little  is  done 
to  stimulate  the  higher  phases  of  patriotism;  that, 
with  all  the  noisy  fuss  and  furor,  the  parade  and 
show  and  cost,  there  is  rarely  anything  done  to 
recall  and  heighten  the  moral  significance  of  the 
birth  of  this  people  among  the  nations  of  the  earth, 
nor  to  educate  and  strengthen  the  sense  of  moral 
obligation,  on  the  part  of  the  present  responsible 
actors  of  the  nation,  worthily  to  develop  a  country 
whose  moral  greatness  shall  correspond  with  the 
proportions  of  its  material  prosperity  and  power. 
On  the  contrary,  oftener  than  not,  the  methods  of 
celebration  have  so  little  of  appropriateness  and 
dignity,  and  are  accompanied  with  so  much  of 
positive  annoyance  and  discomfort,  that  a  large 
number  of  citizens  are  put  into  anything  but 
a  mood  of  congratulation  over  their  country's 
birthday. 

The  need  of  a  patriotism  of  a  higher  moral  qual- 
ity has  been  especially  intensified  by  certain  feat- 
ures in  the  recent  history  of  our  country.  It  is  not 
pleasant  nor  usual  to  speak  of  national  faults  on 
the  Fourth  of  July.  Yet,  I  can  but  think  it  would 
be  a  good  thing  for  this  nation  to-morrow,  in  the 
midst  of  its  patriotic  celebrations,  to  have  some  of 
its  moral   shortcomings  and  perils  so  presented  to 


360  THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTISM 

its  conscience  that  that  organ  would  be  pricked 
into  a  wholesome  conviction  of  sin.  It  certainly 
cannot  be  good  nor  safe  to  allow  the  political  con- 
science of  the  people  to  be  lulled  to  sleep  under 
any  such  doctrine  as  that  which  has  been  promul- 
gated by  a  person  in  high  political  position  and 
authority,  that  the  Ten  Commandments  and  the 
Golden  Rule  have  no  place  in  politics.  That,  too 
generally,  they  do  not  find  place  in  practical  poli- 
tics is  cause  not  for  declaration  of  the  fact  as  a 
political  principle  (Heaven  forbid  I),  but  cause  and 
urgent  call  for  political  reform.  It  is  one  of  the 
wise  features  of  the  system  of  government  in  the 
United  States,  and  a  feature  whose  wisdom  has 
been  so  corroborated  by  time  that  its  consistent 
and  thorough  application  is  only  made  the  more 
apparent,  that  state  and  Church  shall  be  separated. 
But  woe  to  the  country  if  it  shall  ever  accept  the 
teaching  that  politics  and  morals  shall  be  sepa- 
rated, or  that  practical  politics  shall  be  separated 
from  even  the  high  ethical  sanctions  of  religion! 
Where,  pray,  do  we  want  our  religion  and  ethics? 
What  are  they  for  but  to  guide  us  in  the  practical 
Juties  of  life?  And  what  duties  are  more  immedi- 
ately practical  than  our  political  duties? 

It  may,  I  believe,  be  truthfully  said  that  there  is 
no  political  duty  of  any  sort  which  does  not  involve 
some  moral  question.  Duty  itself  is  the  primary 
word  of  morals.  Even  the  political  issues  that 
to-day,  and  in  the  just  entered  great  national  cam- 
paign, are  most  conspicuously  to  agitate  and  divide 


THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTISM  361 

public  opinion  in  this  country  —  that  is,  the  tariff 
question  and  the  silver,  or  money,  question  —  in- 
volve at  bottom  ethical  problems.  The  ethical 
bearing  of  such  complicated  political  problems  as 
these  is  not  always  visible  to  the  disputants;  yet, 
through  free  discussion  and  gradual  enlightenment, 
these  questions  will  ultimately  work  themselves 
down  to  their  moral  bases,  and  will  never  be  per- 
manently settled  till  settled  according  to  the  re- 
quirements of  impartial  justice  between  citizen 
and  citizen,  and  between  the  whole  body  of  citi- 
zens and  the  world.  Politics  means  the  science  of 
government.  And  there  is  nothing  which  a  politi- 
cal government  has  to  do,  even  if  it  be  but  the 
building  of  a  road  or  the  chartering  of  a  bridge, 
which  does  not  at  some  point  touch  the  question  of 
right  between  man  and  man. 

But,  while  on  many  matters  that  are  at  issue  in 
politics  equally  good  men  may  differ  as  to  where 
the  right  lies,  and  a  period  of  educating  discussion 
is  necessary  for  making  clear  the  moral  bearings, 
there  are  other  matters  on  which  momentous  polit- 
ical issues  and  elections  are  made  frequently/,  to 
depend, —  practices  in  vogue,  motives  appealed 
to,  passions  aroused,  concerning  which  the  moral 
aspect  is  already  so  evident  that  it  would  seem  as 
if  there  could  be  no  division  among  men  of  toler- 
ably upright  consciences  as  to  their  condemnation. 
And  there  would  be  no  division  on  such  matters, 
were  it  not  for  the  hallucination  that,  at  the  man- 
date of  party  and   in  the  alleged  interest   of  par- 


362  THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTISM 

tisan  success,  the  moral  law  may  be  somehow 
temporarily  abrogated  for  the  individual  con- 
science. Take,  for  instance,  that  class  of  poli- 
ticians, of  whatever  party,  who  may  be  said  to 
define  politics,  not  as  the  science  of  government, 
but  as  the  science  of  getting  government  office  for 
themselves  and  friends,  —  the  men  who  are  in  poli- 
tics for  what  they  can  make  out  of  the  business. 
Tammany  Hall,  in  New  York,  is  the  most  con- 
spicuous representative  of  this  class  of  politicians 
in  this  country.  But  every  State,  and  every  city 
of  any  considerable  size,  has  the  same  species  of 
political  aspirants  with  more  or  less  of  political 
power,  though  they  may  be  kept  under  measurable 
control  by  the  force  of  public  opinion  in  many 
places.  And  everywhere  we  should  say  that  all 
right-minded  men  would  combine  to  condemn  and 
put  down  such  self-seeking  aspirants,  many  of 
whom  are  not  merely  seekers  for  political  favor, 
but  miscreants  bent  on  plunder  of  the  people's 
property.  But  too  often  in  such  cases  party  attrac- 
tion is  stronger  than  the  moral  law;  and  we  find 
even  the  otherwise  good  and  right-minded  men,  in- 
stead of  combining  against  this  party  of  political 
plunderers,  dividing  their  own  forces  and  then 
each  division  rivalling  the  other  in  making  bar- 
gains with  the  plunderers  and  the  spoilsmen.  It 
is  commonly  believed  that  Tammany  Hall  decided 
our  last  Presidential  election;  and  it  is  now  proph- 
esied that,  though  it  has  not  succeeded  in  nom- 
inating the  Presidential    candidate  of    its    choice, 


THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTISM  363 

it  will  yet  decide  the  election  this  year  between 
the  two  great  parties.  It  should  be  cause  for  the 
utmost  humiliation  and  shame  that  a  society  so 
thoroughly  disreputable  and  immoral,  so  in  league 
with  metropolitan  vice  and  crime,  should  be  such  a 
power  in  politics  as  to  tempt  either  of  the  great 
parties  of  the  country  to  make  bargains  with  it. 
But  more  cause  for  humiliation  is  it  that  any  of  the 
managers  of  the  great  parties  of  the  country  should 
be  ready  to  accept  the  tempter's  price.  The  Tam- 
many element,  unfortunately,  is  in  the  parties 
themselves.  Wherever  found,  it  is  after  the  spoils 
of  office  and  the  scalps  of  its  enemies.  It  is  an 
element  that  goes  into  politics  with  no  moral  prin- 
ciple whatever.  It  is  always  for  self.  It  corrupts 
whatever  it  touches.  And  yet  good  men,  enlight- 
ened men,  divide  on  minor  issues  of  political 
policy  and  succumb  to  its  power. 

Akin  to  the  Tammany  evil,  and  springing  from 
the  same  root,  is  the  increasing  use  of  money  as  a 
power  in  political  elections.  Of  course  there  is  a 
legitimate  use  for  money  in  political  campaigns. 
Literature  is  to  be  printed  and  circulated,  public 
meetings  are  to  be  held,  the  people  are  to  be 
roused  from  apathy  to  action  by  intelligent  and 
spirited  discussion.  But  such  needs  for  money  as 
these  would  demand  but  a  small  portion  of  the  vast 
sums  of  money  that  are  raised  and  spent  for  cam- 
paign purposes.  In  many  places  it  has  become  a 
rule  to  assess  candidates  for  office  at  a  fixed  sum, 
according  to  the  amount  in  salary  and  perquisites 


364  THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTISM 

the  office  is  considered  worth.  In  New  York  even 
candidates  for  judgeships  are  thus  assessed  by  po- 
litical bosses  to  the  figure  of  thousands  of  dollars; 
and  some  of  the  most  eminent  and  worthy  of  the 
judges  of  that  State  have  had  to  submit  to  this 
mulct,  if  they  would  reach  the  places  for  which 
they  may  have  a  proper  ambition  and  for  which 
their  fellow-citizens  deem  them  specially  qualified. 
In  this  case  the  vicious  custom  which  has  assumed 
the  force  of  law  should  certainly  be  forbidden  by 
law.  Of  all  official  personages,  a  judge  should  be 
clear  of  even  the  suspicion  of  contributing  money 
for  his  own  election.  And,  generally,  it  would  be 
more  becoming,  even  if  statute  law  cannot  accom- 
plish it,  that  the  unwritten  law  of  public  opinion 
should  prevent  a  candidate  for  any  office  paying 
money  for  a  campaign  in  which  his  own  election  to 
office  is  in  question.  But  now  the  expectation  is 
just  the  reverse.  A  candidate  for  public  office  is 
not  only  looked  to  for  such  courtesies  as  dinners 
and  railroad  tickets  to  delegates  on  convention 
days, —  all  of  which  courtesies  are  of  the  nature  of 
small  bribes, —  but  he  is  expected  to  pay  largely 
into  the  campaign  fund,  if  he  has  the  means  to  do 
it,  and  is  quite  likely  to  be  chosen  as  a  candidate 
because  he  has  the  means  and  the  disposition  to  use 
them  freely  in  behalf  of  his  political  ambition. 
And  so  we  have,  at  election  times,  our  political 
journals  full  of  suggestions,  which  should  make 
our  checks  tingle  with  shame,  that  the  candidates 
with  the   largest  "barrels" — as  the  political  slang 


THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTISM  365 

is  —  are  winning  the  political  race;  and  intima- 
tions are  thick  that  rich  men  buy  their  way  even 
into  such  high  offices  of  dignity  and  power  as  that 
of  a  United  States  Senator  or  a  Cabinet  position. 
That  campaign  funds  are  used,  in  one  way  and  an- 
other, for  the  bribing  of  voters,  for  the  actual  pur- 
chase of  voters  at  so  many  dollars  a  head,  has 
become  an  open  secret:  it  is  practised  in  cities 
and  in  country  towns,  and  even  our  new  ballot  laws 
have  not  yet  stopped  this  profanation  of  the  free- 
man's duty  of  voting.  To  this  shameful  degrada- 
tion has  fallen  the  sacred  right  of  self-government 
by  the  ballot  which  our  fathers  fought  to  establish. 
Oh,  for  the  higher  patriotism  before  whose  indig- 
nant scorn  both  the  briber  and  the  bribed  should 
be  driven,  at  least,  into  outward  respect  for  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  decencies  of 
free  citizenship! 

Then,  again,  the  extravagant  pension  legislation 
of  the  country  has  opened  another  most  fertile 
source  of  corruption.  It  is  a  kind  of  corruption 
that  is  infinitely  subtle,  working  like  a  deadly 
disease  at  the  very  roots  of  patriotism.  The 
United  States  Senate  has  just  passed  the  "Annual 
Pension  Appropriation  Bill,"  aggregating  nearly 
$145,000,000.  The  Commissioner  of  Pensions, 
however,  estimates  that  this  immense  sum  will 
fall  short  of  the  requirements,  which  he  puts  at 
$156,000,000;  and  in  the  course  of  the  discussion 
it  was  stated  that,  even  with  no  additional  legisla- 
tion increasing  the  list  of  pensioners  or  their  pen- 


366  THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTISM 

sions,  the  present  laws  would  bring  the  necessary- 
appropriation  up  to  nearly  $200,000,000  in  the 
course  of  two  or  three  years.  When  General 
Grant  was  President,  he  thought  that  a  sum  less 
than  $30,000,000  annually  should  suffice  to  meet 
all  just  pension  claims,  even  when  they  should 
reach  the  highest  point.  And  up  to  1879  ^^^ 
estimate  was,  on  an  average,  correct.  In  that  year 
Congress  passed  the  "Arrears  of  Pensions  Bill," 
which  at  once  nearly  doubled  the  annual  amount 
required.  And,  what  is  worse,  it  disclosed  to  the 
ex-soldiers  of  the  country  the  fatal  facility  of  Con- 
gress for  passing  such  bills.  The  legislation  had 
not  been  called  for  by  those  whom  it  would  benefit. 
The  soldiers  had,  up  to  that  time,  been  self- 
respecting.  There  was  no  argument  of  any  weight 
to  show  their  needs.  It  was  simply  a  demagogue's 
measure  to  catch  their  votes.  And  from  that  time 
to  this,  as  still  more  liberal  legislation  has  been 
proposed  and  adopted,  there  has  been  no  party  in 
Congress  that  has  dared  to  oppose  it.  A  new  busi- 
ness for  pension  claim  agents  and  pension  lawyers 
and  lobbyists  sprang  up,  the  soldiers  themselves 
were  plied  with  circulars  reminding  them  of  the 
government's  bounty,  and  setting  them  to  work  to 
look  up  their  diseases  and  disabilities  and  establish 
their  claims.  The  result  was  that  thousands  and 
scores  of  thousands  of  soldiers  went  on  to  the  pen- 
sion rolls  because  of  some  wound  or  contingent 
disability,  though  abundantly  able  to  take  care  of 
themselves    and    their    families,   or    possessing    an 


THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTISM  36/ 

ample  fortune;  and  a  multitude  of  others  are  there 
who  may  be  disabled,  but  whose  disability  is  in  no 
wise  the  result  of  their  wounds  or  exposures  in  the 
country's  service.  Moreover,  nearly  thirty  per 
cent,  of  this  enormous  annual  appropriation  does 
not  reach  the  soldiers  at  all.  It  goes  to  pension 
agents  and  to  the  expenditures  of  the  Pension 
Bureau.  Now,  I  am  well  aware  that  to  raise  any 
criticism  of  this  enormous  pension  system  of  our 
country  is  to  subject  one  to  the  charge  of  being 
disloyal  to  what  was  our  Union  soldiers'  cause. 
Do  you  ungratefully  forget  the  debt,  it  is  asked, 
which  the  country  owes  its  soldiers?  To  which  I 
reply,  No:  I  can  never  forget  it,  nor  is  it  a  debt 
which  the  nation  can  ever  pay.  It  is  a  kind  of 
debt  which  cannot  be  measured  nor  paid  in  dollars 
and  cents.  If  the  old  soldiers  were  disabled  by  the 
war,  and  they  or  those  dependent  on  them  are  in 
need,  then  let  the  help  be  prompt  and  generous. 
The  nation  should  see  to  it  that  none  such  should 
suffer.  But  to  provide  that  a  soldier  not  of  this 
class  should  be  aided  by  the  bounty  of  the  public 
treasury  is  to  transform  che  proud  and  honorable 
tie  of  patriotism  into  a  mercenary  relation.  As  to 
loyalty  to  the  cause  for  which  our  soldiers  fought, 
I  claim  that  it  was  not  the  thought  of  pay,  but  the 
spirit  of  patriotism  which  was  the  impelling  motive 
which  led  to  enlistments  in  the  army.  It  was 
enough  if  our  State  or  the  nation  promised  to  care 
for  those  dependent  on  us,  should  the  fortunes  of 
war  deprive  them  of  our  support.     That  was   the 


368  THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTISM 

only  contract  which  the  nation  undertook, —  that 
and  the  support  of  the  army  in  the  field.  The  rest 
of  the  compensation  was  to  be  found  in  the  prizes 
of  valor  and  self-sacrifice  and  in  the  honor  of  doing 
honorable  service  for  the  salvation  of  one's  country 
when  in  peril  and  for  human  liberty.  It  was  my 
privilege  to  be  one  of  those  who  did  some  slight 
part  in  that  great  service.  But,  though  I  had  been 
wounded  and  maimed  in  the  conflict,  so  long  as 
with  brain  or  hand  I  can  earn  my  bread,  I  trust  I 
should  have  the  grace  to  say  to  my  country,  "  Keep 
your  pensions  for  those  who  are  disabled  and  in 
want :  leave  to  me  the  sole  but  ample  satisfaction 
of  having  served  my  country  as  I  would  have  served 
my  own  mother  in  peril,  from  filial  love  and  duty." 
The  true  loyalty  can  ask  no  other  reward  than  that. 
Apply  not  your  silver  knife  to  cut  the  nerve  of  the 
higher  patriotism,  which  places  honor  above  silver 
or  gold  or  comfort  or  life. 

There  are  other  evils  of  recent  growth  in  this 
country  which  are  a  great  strain  on  the  patriotism 
of  good  citizens.  But  I  can  only  briefly  allude  to 
them.  There  is  the  growing  misgovernment  of 
great  cities,  due  largely  to  political  entanglement 
with  the  vicious  power  of  the  liquor  saloon. 
There  is  the  utter  failure  of  free  government  in 
some  of  our  cities,  owing  to  this  and  other  causes, 
and  a  condition  of  practical  anarchy, —  as  when,  in 
New  Orleans,  if  the  courts  fail  to  do  justice,  a 
mob  of  citizens  breaks  into  a  jail  and  deliberately 
murders  a  dozen  imprisoned  and  defenceless  men; 


THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTISM  369 

and  this  great  nation  of  sixty-five  millions  of 
people  is  powerless  by  law  and  in  fact  to  prevent 
the  massacre  or  to  bring  the  murderers  to  trial. 
There,  again,  are  the  outrages  committed  against 
the  liberties  and  rights  of  the  colored  people  in 
some  parts  of  the  country;  and,  again,  though  po- 
litical platform  and  pulpit  may  utter  their  indig- 
nant protests,  this  great  government  looks  on 
helplessly.  You  may  attempt  a  journey  in  a 
palace  car  across  the  continent,  or  you  may  send  a 
train  with  treasure  across;  but  you  do  it  with  the 
liability  that  your  train  or  car  will  be  held  up  by 
banditti,  and  the  treasure  stolen  and  the  passengers 
robbed.  Or  look  at  our  latest  anti-Chinese  bill, — 
a  piece  of  legislation  which  is  both  a  perfidy  and 
an  atrocity,  a  violation  of  our  own  solemn  treaties 
and  an  institution  of  legal  measures  against  unof- 
fending Chinamen,  now  for  years  resident  in  this 
country,  which  revives  the  spirit  and  some  of  the 
features  of  the  fugitive  slave  law.  Let  there  be 
needed  restriction  on  immigration,  applicable  alike 
to  all  nationalities;  but  let,  at  least,  the  legisla- 
tion be  equitable  and  the  laws  humane.  And  the 
humiliating  feature  about  it  is  that  this  legislation 
was  adopted  against  the  sober  conscience  of  the 
country,  and  at  the  behest  of  party  expediency.  It 
was  one  of  the  things  which  neither  party  in  Con- 
gress dared  to  oppose  nor  the  President  to  veto,  for 
fear  of  losing  the  support  of  the  Pacific  States  in 
the  coming  campaign. 

Noting  all  these  things,  are  we,  it  may  be  well 


370  THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTISM 

asked,  a  nation  of  civilized  men,  or  are  we  still  in  a 
semi-barbarous  condition?  And  yet,  remembering 
all  these  things,  where,  on  the  whole,  shall  we  find 
a  better  country?  where  one  with  vaster  possibili- 
ties for  good  and  a  more  promising  future?  Tak- 
ing things  even  at  their  worst  among  us,  what  is 
the  duty,  what  the  lesson,  of  our  national  birthday? 
Not  to  flee  the  country,  not  to  fold  our  hands  and 
leave  it  to  be  preyed  on  by  the  harpies  of  ruin. 
Here,  rather,  is  our  opportunity  to  show  our  pa- 
triotism,—  the  opportunity  for  that  higher  patriot- 
ism which  would  go  to  the  rescue  of  a  country  in 
peril  and  save  it,  an  opportunity  for  making  a 
country  which  shall  be  worth  living  for  and  worth 
dying  for.  Our  fathers  were  not  dismayed  when 
first,  on  these  rugged  New  England  shores,  they 
had  to  fight  for  their  very  existence,  as  well  as 
for  their  religious  liberty,  against  climate,  against 
the  wilderness,  against  savage  man  and  savage 
beast,  against  famine  and  disease.  They  did  not 
succumb:  they  conquered.  Our  fathers  of  the 
Revolutionary  epoch  did  not  yield  to  the  dis- 
couragements of  their  era.  They  did  not  sink  in 
despair  at  the  thought  of  their  untrained  militia 
meeting  in  armed  conflict  the  veteran  soldiers  of 
Great  Britain,  of  their  poverty  contending  against 
England's  wealth,  of  traitors  at  home  ready  to 
attack  them  in  the  rear.  They  had  faith  in  the 
strength  of  their  cause,  in  the  strength  of  their 
hearts,  in  the  strength  of  their  right  arms;  and 
they  conquered.      And,  when  that  more  recent  trial 


THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTISM  3/1 

hour  came, —  the  slaveholders'  rebellion,  —  the 
country  did  not  falter.  At  first,  indeed,  there  was 
the  discouraged  cry,  "  Let  the  wayward  sisters 
go!"  But,  when  the  flag  was  struck,  the  coun- 
try's heart  felt  the  blow,  and  was  smitten  with  a 
righteous  indignation.  The  country  rose  to  the 
level  of  the  need.  Men,  means,  statesmanship, 
military  leadership,  all  came  amply  adequate  to 
the  emergency;  and  the  country  was  saved, —  the 
whole  country, —  and  rededicated  entire  to  liberty. 
With  such  memories  in  our  national  history  we 
ou^ht  to  be  shamed  out  of  all  half-faith  in  our  re- 
publican  institutions,  out  of  all  half-heartedness 
and  cowardly  discouragement  in  face  of  the  evils 
that  now  seem  to  endanger  them. 

Yet  we  are  not  to  close  our  eyes  to  these  evils. 
We  are  not  to  trust  in  any  principle  of  "manifest 
destiny "  to  save  us  from  them.  No  doctrine  of 
the  old-fashioned  optimistic  fatalism,  that,  because 
we  are  the  freest  nation  and  have  the  best  form  of 
government  on  earth,  therefore  no  evil  can  befall 
us,  is  going  to  meet  present  emergencies.  We 
must  meet  them  just  as  the  country  has  always  met 
the  evils  that  have  beset  it  hitherto, —  by  resolute 
vigilance  and  courage,  by  thoughtfulness,  by  boldly 
facing  the  evils  and  overcoming  them,  not  neces- 
sarily by  military  power,  but  by  steady  application 
of  the  best  intellect  and  conscience  of  the  country 
to  the  devising  of  political,  legal,  and  moral 
remedies.  Most  solemn  duties  rest  upon  the 
people   of    these   States, —  duties  to   be   performed 


372  THE    HIGHER    PATRIOTISM 

under  a  sense  of  religious  obligation,  duties  to  our 
country  and  duties  to  mankind,  whose  welfare  is 
so  closely  involved  in  the  success  and  prosperity 
of  our  free  institutions,  duties  to  liberty,  to  jus- 
tice, to  human  rights.  We  justly  honor  those  who 
have  died  for  their  country.  But  it  is  a  harder 
and  therefore  a  nobler  task  to  live  for  one's 
country. 


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